Court throws out ATA reefer-unit claim against California

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit (D.C. Circuit) has dismissed the claim of the American Trucking Assns. (ATA) and the Truckload Carriers Assn. (TCA) that the federal government has given California too much control over certain engine emission standards, namely those for truck/trailer refrigeration units.

According to a report posted online today by Courthouse News Service, in its claim ATA had “disputed a 2004 rule establishing new standards for ‘non-road’ engines, a category that includes refrigeration units for trucks transporting frozen or perishable goods.
Those standards aimed to cut diesel particle emissions 75%t by 2010 and w applied to engines based in and operating out of California. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved the standards in 2005, the online report noted, as well as that a Congressional waiver allows California to implement emissions standards that are stricter than federal limits.
The court’s ruling was stated unequivocally by Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh:

“The [federal] Clean Air Act assigns California – not any of the other states and not the federal Environmental Protection Agency – the primary role in setting limits on emissions from in-use non-road engines… Under the Act, each of the other 49 states may adopt a rule identical to California’s. Otherwise, however, the other states are prohibited from adopting any regulation of emissions from in-use non-road engines…. In 2004, California enacted a rule that regulates the emissions from transportation refrigeration units in trucks. EPA authorized California’s rule after reviewing it under the relevant statutory criteria. The American Trucking Associations…has challenged EPA’s decision, arguing that EPA misinterpreted and unreasonably applied the statutory criteria when approving the California
rule. We disagree, and we therefore deny the petition for review.”