Pennsylvania’s Peter Brothers Trucking delivers goods all across the United States. Owner Brian Wanner says Pennsylvania bureaucrats now are driving him out of his home state.
“We have no say,” Mr. Wanner says in my new video. “We can’t do anything about it.”
“No say” because Pennsylvania’s new rules don’t come from Pennsylvania. They come from California.
“I don’t want to be anything like California!” Mr. Wanner complains.
Too bad for him and other Pennsylvania truck owners, because Pennsylvania’s Environmental Quality Board decided their state will automatically copy California regulations.
California’s rules will raise the price of a new truck by about one-third. Trucks that once cost $190,000 will now cost about $260,000.
California regulators said this new air pollution regulation is needed because trucks such as the one Mr. Wanner drives “contribute greatly to ... serious health and welfare problems.”
That’s ridiculous, Mr. Wanner says. “We have come so far in the last 40 years. In 1980, one truck produced as much [pollution] as 60 trucks today.”
“But if you put these costs on us that we cannot afford, we’re going to just run the older trucks,” Mr. Wanner responds.
“The regulators don’t think about that?” I ask.
“They do not,” Mr. Wanner replies. “They do not see the consequences of what they’re doing.”
Now, truckers such as Mr. Wanner will just buy trucks in neighboring states.
“We can go to Ohio and get cheaper trucks,” he says.
So there won’t be any pollution reduction. The new rule will just hurt Pennsylvanians who sell trucks.
Who are these regulators? Pennsylvania’s Environmental Quality Air Board is mostly made up of people from unrelated departments, such as the Fish and Boat Commission, the Game Commission, and the Historical & Museum Commission. I doubt that many know much about air pollution.
“The whole idea of having a regulatory board like this is, ‘Oh, these people are experts,’” attorney Caleb Kruckenberg of the Pacific Legal Foundation says. “‘They know what they’re talking about. They’re smarter than the lawmakers.’ But if you look at the board, that’s not true. These are just random bureaucrats who work in the government, and they say: ‘I don’t know. Let’s follow California.’”
Mr. Kruckenberg is suing Pennsylvania on behalf of truckers such as Mr. Wanner, arguing that what Pennsylvania does violates the Constitution.
“Nobody in Pennsylvania has ever voted for the standards that now control Pennsylvania.”
I push back. “So what? California seems to have a lot of money. I could see a state saying, ‘Yeah, let their regulators figure out how we reduce pollution, and we’ll save money doing what they do.’”
“If people want something,” Mr. Kruckenberg replies, “their legislature is supposed to pass it.”
California’s rules will soon get still more expensive because Gov. Gavin Newsom has decreed that soon, all new vehicles must be electric.
“But electricity comes from fossil fuels,” Mr. Kruckenberg points out. In Pennsylvania, some comes from coal, and most comes from natural gas.
So to power all-electric trucks, Pennsylvania will burn more fossil fuels.
Still another problem: Electric trucks are heavier.
“That’s harder on the roads,” Mr. Wanner says.
He also says: “Electric trucks have a very low mileage radius, so you can’t work all day. It’s nothing that you can take across the United States.”
Pennsylvania’s regulators don’t seem to care. They just want to do what California does.
“Why would we allow our state to give away their lawmaking procedures to California?” Mr. Wanner asks. “That’s not the American way. If we want to follow California, we can move there! I don’t want to be anything like California.”
