Comment Log Display

April 14, 2014

As a leading California retrofit installer and emissions compliance
company, Ironman works with many fleets and independent owner
operators seeking CARB compliance. 

In the past year, Ironman has experienced a significant increase of
Owner Operators seeking compliance due to the December 31st, 2013
deadline and also now the Good Faith Extension July 1st deadline. 

Due to the volume of Owner Operators seeking compliance, and the
majority of these drivers also needing compliance information and
financial assistance, Ironman needed to staff up quickly. Thereby,
Ironman has staffed up an entire department in order to assist the
IOOs with applying via lenders, helping with the documentation and
communication process, and assisting with the lender approval
process. 

However, with CARB’s proposed amendment to the regulation, to
“defer compliance with the PM filter requirements for up to 3
vehicles for any owner that cannot get financing to comply” there
is serious concern that now Owner Operators are more motivated to
be declined by a lender than to actually seek CARB compliance.  

There are already unintended consequences cropping up in the
industry as a result of the good intentions by CARB to offer
flexibility. The motivating factor for Owner Operators is to simply
obtain a decline letter from either the most conservative lender or
even fraudulent lenders.

For those Owner Operators that are truly in a dire situation and
have genuinely been declined, the proposed CARB extension will
allow these truck owners to meet compliance through a more flexible
path. However many Owner Operators have trucks exclusively
dedicated to a single large fleet and operation, thereby some
financial assistance could possibly be sought from the mother
fleet.

Ironman proposes that CARB employ a methodology in order to weed
out any suspect denial letters from the genuine ones by requiring
the credit score to be provided with the denial letter. 

*Generally IOOs that are under 575 credit score will truly have a
difficult time being approved by lenders. 

*IOOs with a credit score higher than 575 may also be genuinely
declined, but there is higher chance of fraudulent reporting in
this category.  CARB should take a different approach with anyone
claiming to be denied that has 575+ credit score and ask one of the
CARB approved lenders to re-qualify the applicant. 

Another methodology CARB could consider is requiring Owner
Operators to produce three denial letters, one being from a CARB
backed lender in order to validate the claim of financing
declination. This would significantly eliminate the possibility of
fraudulent lenders handing out denial letters.

To put some cause for concern of anyone possibly submitting
fraudulent information, CARB may consider adding the following
language to the documents required for submitting denial
information “I certify under penalty of perjury under the laws of
the State of California that the information on this document is
true and correct.”

Many small fleets (and large) have gone through the complete
compliance process having faith that industry compliance was fair
and all fleets alike were on their path to compliance. However, the
possibility of any fraudulent-based extensions will give way to
unfair competition, resentment from those that “did the right
thing” and sought compliance, and another blow to CARB and industry
compliance efforts. 

Ironman respectfully requests CARB to reconsider offering retrofit
grants to small fleets as a means of assisting many that cannot
afford to comply with the regulation, whether its retrofit expense
or even new truck replacement. 

Some fleets with dedicated Owner Operators have taken the step to
support their network of drivers and offered financial support.
Ironman applauds this effort and encourages CARB and fleets alike
to consider this as an avenue for industry compliance.