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Archive for category: General News

CARB Chair Liane Randolph to Retire from State Service

September 15, 2025/in CARB Consultant, General News

SACRAMENTO – Governor Gavin Newsom today announced that California Air Resources Board (CARB) Chair Liane Randolph will be retiring from state service effective September 30, 2025 and named Senior Advisor to the Governor for Climate Lauren Sanchez to serve as the next CARB Chair.

“Serving the public has been the honor of a lifetime and I am incredibly proud of everything the agency has accomplished over the last five years. I thank Governor Newsom for the opportunity, my fellow board members for their partnership, and CARB staff for their unwavering dedication to the mission of clean air and a better future for all Californians,” said Chair Randolph. “As I leave state service, I do so with gratitude and hope — knowing the next generation is ready to lead with courage, compassion and conviction.  Lauren brings intellect, tenacity and a deep commitment to California. I pass the baton with full confidence in her ability to carry this work forward with heart and vision.”

During her time as Chair, CARB expanded its focus on improving conditions in communities that suffer from the highest levels of air pollution in the state, and the Board has adopted landmark climate and environmental policies, including the 2022 Scoping Plan laying out California’s path to carbon neutrality by 2045, and implementing Governor Newsom’s 2020 executive order on zero-emission vehicles, accelerating the transition to a cleaner transportation system.

Other agency accomplishments during Chair Randolph’s term include:

  • Adopting a plan that ended agricultural burning in the San Joaquin Valley
  • Overseeing a plan to expand the Community Air Protection Program to 64 communities that have been consistently nominated for the program
  • Putting nearly $10 billion into projects through the California Climate Investments program using revenue from Cap-and-Invest auctions, also known as Cap-and-Trade
  • Adopting regulations to advance zero-emission technology including Advanced Clean Cars II, Advanced Clean Fleets, In-Use Off-Road Diesel-Fueled Fleets, Small Off-Road Engine Exhaust Emission and In-Use Locomotive rules
  • Launching Clean Truck Check, a comprehensive inspection program for heavy-duty vehicles
  • Updating the Low Carbon Fuel Standard to drive private investment toward cleaner fuels
  • Initiating the Carbon Capture, Removal, Utilization, and Storage program
  • Launching a first-in-the-nation satellite project to reduce methane leaks
  • Started rulemaking for corporate greenhouse gas emissions and climate-risk reporting
  • Working with the legislature to extend the Cap-and-Invest program to 2045

Chair Randolph dedicated the majority of her career to public service, including more than 20 years in state leadership roles, most recently as CARB Chair since 2021. Prior to her work at CARB, Randolph served as a Commissioner at the California Public Utilities Commission from 2015 to 2021, Deputy Secretary and General Counsel at the California Natural Resources Agency from 2011 to 2014 and Chair of the California Fair Political Practices Commission from 2003 to 2007.

Chair Sanchez starts October 1, 2025, and assumes Chair Randolph’s current term which ends in December 2026. The appointment is subject to Senate confirmation

WSTA Signs Industry Letter On CARBS Climate Disclosure Reporting

September 15, 2025/in Association News, General News, Governmental Affairs and Communications

The WSTA signed onto an industry letter urging CARB to modify its Corporate Greenhouse Gas Reporting and Climate Related Risk Disclosure regulations. While the regulation doesn’t directly affect small entities, indirectly it will as effected entities will require those, they do business with to supply them with the necessary data to complete their reporting requirements.

Lawsuit brought by four top truck makers against the CARB and Gavin Newsom, filed 8/11/25

August 11, 2025/in Governmental Affairs and Communications, Legal

Here you can read the full complaint and exhibits A and B from the lawsuit brought by four top truck makers against the CARB and Gavin Newsom.

Read TPPF’s Letter to the EPA Re: Proposed Greenhouse Gas Vehicle Rule Rescission

August 11, 2025/in Governmental Affairs and Communications

Zero-emission truck deployment behind targets, Calstart finds

January 24, 2025/in General News

New Partnership Program for Members

December 10, 2024/in General News

WSTA has recently partnered with Regulis to help members save 10+ hours per week and thousands per year by automating compliance and safety and all the related tasks – things like DQ files, state / federal filings, and maintenance schedules.

WSTA assists members directly with many regulatory requirements of being a motor carrier such as updating your DOT number, small-fleet CARB CTC registration and even the federal New Entrant Safety audits (and we don’t charge members a fee).

The one thing we do not assist with is what is often termed managing the “back office.” This includes all sorts of primarily paperwork tasks such as maintaining up-to-date driver qualifications files, maintenance records, and compliance with hours-of-service records. Much of the required paperwork retention is part of having proper safety management in-place.

Lately, we have seen an uptick in members failing their safety audits, oftentimes because they have not properly maintained the required records mandated by regulation. We have always provided members with many of the required template forms they must maintain. The failures we are seeing are happening primarily with small motor carriers, especially owner-operators. It may seem weird that a one-truck operator must keep an employment application on file for themselves, but it is required.

Backoffice tasks can be tedious because of the paperwork. Worse, is forgetting when you need to renew or update something. For instance, we often aid members whose motor carrier permit expired, mostly because the expiration date went unnoticed. A “teaser” system that could let you know things like expiration dates and even save log-in information for various websites you often go to (FMCSA, Clearinghouse, DIR, CARB, etc.) could assist you in avoiding the frustration that comes with missing those dates.

Our new partnership is with regulis.ai. There are numerous articles in the trucking media about larger entities using AI to improve their motor carrier operations. For many smaller motor carriers, it can be difficult to see a “value proposition” in that technology. Regulis uses AI as part of its platform and allows the user to ask any sorts of compliance questions to get the answer. For instance, what is CARB’s Clean Truck Check (CTC)?

A cool feature of the platform is the ability to take a picture of a driver’s license to upload for DQ files and their system will automatically populate the driver centric information on the required forms, no need for manual entry of data!

The platform is available in multiple languages.

All members taking advantage of this partnership will get a 20% discount on the cost of subscribing.

WSTA Secures Another Victory for Trucking

October 30, 2024/in Front Page News, General News, Legal

OPINION: Truck OEM’s Made a Deal with CARB They Likely Regret

October 28, 2024/in General News

If you have attempted to purchase a new diesel powered truck in California (or even states that eagerly adopted CARBs ACT rule), you have probably run into a roadblock where the dealership cannot sell you the truck you want or need.

This is directly the result of a deal struck between CARB and the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association, its members, and the Ford Motor Company. That deal is often referred to as the Clean Truck Partnership (CTP).

Truck dealers are complaining that they must meet zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) sales quotas in order to sell diesel powered trucks and since nobody wants a ZEV, the dealerships are limited in meeting customer demands for diesel equipped trucks even though their sales are still permitted, with a caveat.

Truck dealership have blamed the Advanced Clean Trucks regulation as the primary cause, but it isn’t that simple. It certainly is a factor, but a bigger factor is the agreement made by the OEM’s with CARB related to the Heavy-Duty Omnibus engine standard adopted by CARB in 2021 (and still awaiting an EPA waiver) further reducing emissions standards for NOx and PM. Currently, California and federal emissions standard are not harmonized and will be only marginally different by 2027.

Based on dealer and fleet owner complaints to CARB, they performed an analysis of the issue and issued a report on September 25, 2024.

Basically, CARB threw “cold water” on the dealership complaints and zeroed in on OEM sales mandates for dealerships to meet. CARB’s analysis stated, “Through discussions with manufacturers, dealers, and fleets, it appears numerous manufacturers have begun to inform their customers they will be applying future requirements to purchase ZEVs before they can acquire combustion vehicles to each of their dealer or upfitters regardless of the types of vehicles they sell as ZEVs. Some have expressed plans to begin implementing a rigid policy to require each dealer or upfitter to purchase a certain number of ZEVs from the manufacturer before they can get any internal combustion vehicles (ICE) whether or not the manufacturer offers ZEVs in the market segment the dealer specializes.”

CARB states as per their agreement with the OEM’s, they could be choosing to use legacy emissions credits to meet the demand for diesel engine sales, but they’re not doing that. CARB stated in its findings, “In summary, the manufacturers are well-situated to comply with the ACT regulation’s requirements for the 2024 MY and there are more than enough available ACT credits that manufacturers could purchase, if necessary, to sell dealers what is needed.”

So, we’re caught in somewhat of a “he said, she said” situation, but not exactly. OEM’s have made a decision to ride the pork barrel of available public funding to push ZEV’s to their customers regardless of whether they meet duty-cycle requirements or whether they can get the necessary charging in-place. In a nutshell, the OEM’s made an agreement with CARB and choose to ignore their customers as well as associations who are suing to derail the ZEV mandate. The OEM’s invested in producing ZEV vehicles and at the least they want their R&D money back, so they are trying to force feed their customers something they don’t want at this time and it is blowing up in their face. They are giving up sales on diesel trucks as part of a gambit to force ZEV’s on customers not suited to early ZEV adoption, nor required to adopt them.

CARB is not blameless either. Their rigidity is holding fast to the ACT will actually hurt air quality improvements due to truck owners basically being forced to keep older trucks or go purchase later model used trucks (mostly out-of-state). We saw this same dynamic play out with the Truck & Bus regulation. After full implementation of the rule, there were reports that air quality improvements were hampered by CARB shoving its nose into the normal trade cycle of truck owners. Many chose to keep their older equipment longer by adding a DPF.

The CARB report also stated that the European units of most of the OEM’s are charging $88,828 more for a comparable ZEV in the U.S. than they sell for in Europe. CARB noted that the pricing for ZEV’s has actually decreased in Europe while increasing in the U.S. At CARB’s October 24 hearing one Board member expressed that CARB is being “ripped off” by the OEM’s.

A lot of government money, both local, state, and federal (as part of the Inflation Reduction Act) is being thrown at forced ZEV adoption. Apparently, the pillars of industrial capitalism also understand crony capitalism quite well and as we see with any activity or behavior subsidized by the government, costs always increase.

States that blindly adopt CARB regulations (CAA section 177 states) are feeling the pain too. Recently Oregon, Massachusetts, and New Jersey are at least discussing delaying their implementation of the Omnibus (and perhaps ACT) and New York is under increasing pressure to follow suit.

OEM’s because of selling out the needs of their customers to the desires of the environmental left have cut themselves into a deal (with CARB) where their desired vehicles sales and ROI are going to make it tough on them financially. Remember, their deal also includes ignoring any and all legal setbacks, even a Supreme Court decision in our favor that CARB and EPA are exceeding their authority and agreeing to only sell ZEV’s in California.

Talk about whipping the finger to your customer base.

CARB Retracts ACF Guidance to Small Fleets and Those that Hire Them

October 22, 2024/in General News

As a result of the Western States Trucking Association (WSTA) litigation in the Superior Court of California challenging CARB’s Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) regulation, we have reached a partial settlement on how the ACF applies to small fleets and the entities that hire them.

Last November, CARB staff posted a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document regarding “Common Ownership and Control.” In it were statements that appeared to broaden the definition of “Common Ownership and Control” so as to make more independent trucking fleets subject to the ACF zero-emissions truck purchase mandate. WSTA objected to the FAQ as “underground regulation” that expanded the ACF regulation’s applicability in a manner inconsistent with the adopted regulatory text.

A a result of WSTA’s litigation efforts, CARB has retracted the November 2023 FAQ “to avoid any confusion it may have caused.” CARB has instead posted a “Retraction of Fact Sheet” on October 16, 2024. WSTA considers this a partial victory in our efforts to reduce zero-emissions truck mandates for both our members and non-members until the truck technology works, infrastructure is built out and accessible and the total cost of ownership is on par with today’s fleet operations.

We will have an additional news release in coming weeks regarding our state litigation and our legal challenge will continue on all remaining unresolved claims.

Don’t Fall for Employee Retention Credit Scams

October 14, 2024/in General News

A growing number of employee retention credit scams are afoot, and you’ve maybe gotten some aggressive calls.  Scammers are employing creative means of bilking businesses out of excessive fees or engaging in outright fraud.

This is leading to employers (including owner-operators) begging the question of, “is ERC a scam?” Yes and no.

The ERC is a refundable tax credit for businesses who continued paying employees while shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic or had significant declines in gross receipts from March 13, 2020–December 31, 2021. Eligible taxpayers can claim the ERC on an original or amended employment tax return for a period within those dates.

To be eligible for the ERC, employers must meet one the following conditions:

  • They sustained a full or partial suspension of operations due to orders from an appropriate governmental authority limiting commerce, travel, or group meetings due to COVID-19 during 2020 or the first three quarters of 2021
  • The business experienced a significant decline in gross receipts during 2020 or a decline in gross receipts during the first three quarters of 2021 PDF
  • The employer qualified as a recovery startup business for the third or fourth quarters of 2021.

Only recovery startup businesses are eligible for the employee retention credit in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Eligible employers cannot claim this credit on wages reported as payroll costs to get PPP loan forgiveness or that they used to claim certain other tax credits at any time.

These third parties often charge large upfront fees or a fee that is contingent on the amount of the refund. They may also fail to inform taxpayers that wage deductions claimed on the business’ federal income tax return must be reduced by the amount of the credit.

If the business filed an income tax return deducting qualified wages before it filed an employment tax return claiming the credit, the business should file an amended income tax return to correct any overstated wage deduction.

Businesses should be cautious of schemes and direct solicitations promising tax savings that are too good to be true. Taxpayers are always responsible for the information reported on their tax returns. Improperly claiming the ERC could result in taxpayers being required to repay the credit along with penalties and interest.

For more “legal” information about the ERC, go to: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/employers-beware-of-third-parties-promoting-improper-employee-retention-credit-claim

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Latest Blogs

  • CARB Factually Misrepresents Adoption Rate of Commercial ZEV’sOctober 3, 2025 - 1:39 pmby: Publisher
  • CARB Truck Partnership Under Attack…and Rightfully So!August 20, 2025 - 2:57 pmby: Lee Brown
  • California Office of Administrative Law Rejects WSTA Petition Against CARBAugust 20, 2025 - 1:31 pmby: Lee Brown
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  • CARB Chair Liane Randolph to Retire from State Service
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