Trucker predicts 'catastrophic' consequences for trucking industry over California's zero-emissions standards

A federal court is fighting with the EPA on a mandate allowing California to establish its own 0 emission standards and electric vehicle requirements. In a three to zero decision, the court found that quote the federal regulations continue to act as the floor for emissions regulations, but California can seek to enact its own more stringent regulatory program above those federal requirements. 17 states filing a lawsuit against California for trying to regulate vehicle emissions. Monty Wiederhold is a trucker from Ohio, one of the 17 states that filed the lawsuit against California. And he says banning gas powered vehicles can collapse the supply chain. And Monty joins me now. Monty, let’s focus on truckers for a second because that is your career. What could this decision mean for truckers like you, not just in California, but throughout our nation? Oh, it’s it’s going to be catastrophic for our segment of the industry and you know 96% of the small fleets are 96% of the industry is made-up of small fleets like mom and Pop one and two truck operators. You know I have a A4 truck fleet myself and obviously this thing is going to cost untold 1,000,000 billions of dollars that we have no way that we’re going to pay for. There’s no infrastructure set up for it. Now there is nothing about this law that makes any sense. And I mean if if if these folks were watching this past winter when the people in Chicago with their Tesla that they couldn’t get to the chargers where they were froze up. Multiply that times about 10. Because right now we currently have nowhere to park our trucks along the highway, just you know rest areas and truck stop, even sleep. So if this mandate comes in, if they go forward with this nonsense, we’re going to be the supply chain crisis on steroids. Yeah, you really do raise an important point. How the heck are we going to charge all these electric trucks? In California? The electric vehicle requirements include the end of sales, end of sales of gas powered vehicles by 2035. There it is. On your screen. 35% of vehicles sold in California must be electric by 2026. That’s only two years away. 68% of vehicles sold in California must be electric by 20-30. So what does this decision mean for the supply chain for making sure that grocery store shelves are stocked? Basically, this is the question, what does this mean for literally every single American? It it’s going to be, it’s it’s going to significantly alter our way of life. I mean the life as we know it now, we’re going to be in some third world country type status to where you’re going to go to the store or stand in line and the shelves are empty because this is what’s going to happen. I mean you know what, Tesla’s got some trucks out there and I think Frito lay bought some immune or hall and potato chips. A load of potato chips weighs 8 or 9000 lbs. You know, I all steal, I all steal. We’re at 80,000 lbs, sometimes higher with permit loads. I had a permit load last week, it was £112,000. How big of a battery am I going to need to pull that load and where am I going to again, where are we going to charge it at? Because, you know, it’s been billions of dollars spent to put up charging stations and I think if memory serves, have probably been less than 100 of them built yet with this billions of dollars. Yet small mom paw truckers to go out of business because of this. And that really does beg this rhetorical question, Monty, what happened to thank you truckers for saving all of our lives during the pandemic? It’s four years later and it seems like we as a nation have forgot the sacrifices of fine folks like you keeping our country afloat. Money wiederhold, we appreciate your time. Stay on top of this issue. Keep us posted.