EPA Delays Tougher Boiler Regulations

Posted on December 10, 2010 
Filed Under HOURS OF SERVICE, IN THE NEWS, POLITICS

This was in yesterday’s (December 9) New York Times. The Obama Administration has delayed regulations which were scheduled to go into effect in January, 2011, which cut industrial emissions from industrial boilers. The EPA has declared it needs until July 2011 to analyze scientific studies of the new rules, and possibly longer.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, while you all don’t have industrial boilers in your trucks, it does give some insight as to what’s going on in the White House right now. President Obama, heretofore an avowed statist, is putting some brakes on his statist agenda. Apparently, he wants what all first term President want: a second term. And he knows if unemployment is still at 10% come November 2012, he’s history. This is why he’s so eager to extend the current tax rates. Tax hikes will kill whatever recovery is happening. Further job-killing regulations will also hurt the recovery.

The DOT’s new hours of service rules are sitting at the White House right now, undergoing final review and approval. Everyone expects they will cut the number of hours drivers can work. They will cost jobs. They should have been released months ago. Yet they are still in the White House. It’s possible, just possible, the politicians are re-writing them as we speak, so they are not so restrictive and onerous. After all, if the President loses in 2012, he, and all his staff in the White House are on the street. The unelected bureaucrats at DOT will still have jobs. We’ll see, but there’s a small chance the new hours of service rules may not be as bad as expected.

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