The California Dump Truck Owners Association (CDTOA) filed suit against the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to challenge the legality of the agency’s Truck and Bus Regulation.

The lawsuit, California Dump Truck Owners Association v. Air Resources Board (Case 2:11-cv-00384-MCE -GGH), was filed in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of California, Sacramento Division, on Feb. 11.

In the lawsuit, CDTOA asserts that CARB’s regulation is unconstitutional as it is preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA) and seeks an injunction prohibiting CARB from enforcing its rule.

In a written statement about the lawsuit, CDTOA notes that it has “attempted to work with CARB for more than four years to find reasonable solutions that accomplish the goal of cleaning California’s air while avoiding the needless devastation of the state’s trucking industry and, specifically, the dump truck industry.”

The association says that the dump truck industry is struggling to survive due to a depressed regional economy, a construction industry suffering through 50 percent unemployment, and rampant construction price deflation as contractors fight for what little work is available.

CDTOA says the compounding damage caused by the construction industry depression, escalating costs, and now the devastating impacts of the CARB Truck and Bus Regulations “will cause incalculable damage within the construction transportation industry.”

The association claims that CARB has repeatedly refused to address these many economic challenges. CDTOA notes that, due to what it calls “a lack of cooperation and empathy,” it is left with no choice other than litigation.

“Our members are experiencing the worst economic conditions in living memory and CARB continues to place impossible regulatory burdens on them at a time they can least afford it,” says Lee Brown, executive director of CDTOA, in a written statement. “Our members support clean air, but the air we breathe can’t be more important than the people that are breathing it.”

CARB’s Truck and Bus Regulation essentially requires all heavy-duty diesel vehicles currently on California’s roads to be replaced with new CARB-compliant vehicles.

However, CDTOA says its members have based their businesses on the ability to use their trucks for at least 800,000 miles and they only average 50,000 miles a year. Because the rule requires replacement of what CDTOA says are “otherwise perfectly useful, and in most cases, clean trucks much earlier than would otherwise be required, the majority of CDTOA members will be unable to comply and forced to close their businesses — leaving hard-working employees (drivers, mechanics, support personnel, and managers) and their families jobless during a time of record unemployment levels in California.

CDTOA points out that, for most of its members, their dump trucks are the sole asset for their business — essentially serving as their office, tool of their trade, sole source of capital and investment, and only basis of income and livelihood.

A new CARB-compliant truck costs more than $150,000 to purchase. However, dump truck rates are down 40 percent, and the number of jobs have been cut in half from only a few years ago.