Your EPA people who made the new truck fuel efficiency regs possible

[kscarbel2]

Chosen by Obama to replace Lisa Jackson in 2013 as head of the EPA, Gina McCarthy has no working understanding whatsoever of heavy truck design and the trucking industry.

Lisa Jackson (2009-2013), a chemical engineer, was another unqualified Obama appointee.

For the record, McCarthy graduated from the University of Massachusetts Boston with a Bachelor of Arts in Social Anthropology in 1976. In 1981, she received a joint Master of Science in Environmental Health Engineering and Planning and Policy from Tufts University.

This unqualified EPA head, like the last one, is charting the future of emissions-related heavy truck design efficiency in the United States. This is shocking........this is scary.

Our EPA today, has zero credibility. U.S. government policy on truck fuel efficiency needs a total reboot, backtracking to verifiable facts, and subsequently working out from there.

McCarthy has inappropriately been put in the pilot’s seat, and a realistically voiceless American populace can do nothing more than read about it in the media.

Volvo and Daimler are against the McCarthy plan, and rightly so, as overemphasizing engines in the regulations could result in added costs, weight and vehicle complexity. The proposed engine standards aren’t aligned with real-world operations.

And truth be told, if the EPA was prudent and competent, it would abandon the go-it-alone U.S. emissions regulations, and adopt the Euro emissions standards used by the rest of the world. Welcoming the U.S. to the party, I'm sure countries around the world would be willing to rename it the "Global Emissions Standards".

EPA Head McCarthy Unable to Defend President's Warming Claims While Imposing Job-Crushing Climate Regulations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKZj-PR2Egg

Obama EPA Chief McCarthy Can’t Say Whether Climate Models Were False Or Not

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24DP1uG-MEM

.

[kscarbel2]

EPA Chief Gina McCarthy Can't Answer Climate Questions

Investor’s Business Daily / March 5, 2015

Climate Change: Gina McCarthy, head of the EPA, can’t answer basic questions about global temperatures, climate models or numbers of hurricanes. She didn’t know being a global warming zealot requires knowledge of math.

If the science of climate change was “settled,” you’d think one of the generals in the war on global warming would have memorized the numbers that point to our planetary doom from a menace the administration says is a greater threat than terrorism.

But McCarthy was asked some pretty simple questions Wednesday at a Senate hearing Wednesday on her request for $8.6 billion to help fight the claimed imminent doom of climate change, and her performance didn’t help her case.

One of the questions involved droughts and the claim that their frequency has increased due to warming that is said to be caused by mankind’s increased production of greenhouse gas, such as carbon dioxide, the basis for all life on Earth but judged by the EPA to be a pollutant.

“Let me ask you this,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., inquired of McCarthy. “There was an article from Mr. (Bjorn) Lomborg … from the Copenhagen Institute. He says, along with Dr. (Roger) Pielke from Colorado, that we’ve had fewer droughts in recent years. Do you dispute that?”

The seemingly clueless McCarthy pathetically responded that she didn’t “know in what context he’s making statements like that.” Context? Truth has its own context, and the inconvenient truth that McCarthy wasn’t aware of, or didn’t want to face, is that Pielke and Lomborg are right.

Pielke, a professor at the University of Colorado, told the Senate environment and public works subcommittee in July 2013 that droughts have “for the most part become shorter, less frequent and cover a smaller portion of the U.S. over the last century.” Globally, he said, “there has been little change in drought over the last 60 years.”

Sessions also asked McCarthy if we’ve had more or fewer hurricanes in the last decade. It was another question she said she couldn’t answer because “it’s a very complicated issue.” Well, no, not unless basic math is a complicated issue. Sessions noted that we have in fact gone nearly a decade without a Category 3 storm or higher making landfall in the U.S.

The last hurricane to hit America as a Category 3 or higher was Wilma, which struck Florida on Oct. 24, 2005. Superstorm Sandy had wind speeds barely reaching Category 1 status when it slammed into New Jersey in 2012 and wreaked havoc.

Sessions inquired of the global temperatures that have virtually flatlined for two decades:

“Would you acknowledge that over the last 18 years, that the increase in temperatures has been very little, matter of fact 90% below most of the environmental models that showed how fast temperature would increase?”

McCarthy replied that she didn’t know “what the models actually are predicting that you are referring to.”

Sessions called her ignorance and inability to outline the danger we supposedly face from climate change, as well as her failure to justify the EPA’s funding request, a “stunning development.” So do we.

The science is indeed settled, but not the way climate zealots think. McCarthy’s lack of knowledge and facts on her side only underscores the fact we have wasted billions on fighting a nonexistent threat and shackled our economy with lower growth and higher job loss.

.

[kscarbel2]

While McCarthy was assistant EPA administrator from 2009 to 2013, her top deputy John Beale stole $886,186 between 2000 and 2013. Despite that, she was promoted to EPA head.

Beale is the EPA bureaucrat who got caught receiving $886,186 in pay without working, because he claimed he also was employed by the CIA. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee reported that Beale “retired” when questions arose about his spotty attendance and expense records.

Only he didn’t file his retirement paperwork and continued to draw an active-duty salary for some time after. His boss at the time in the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation (OAR), now-EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, knew this for about 7 months and did nothing to stop it.

On March 29, 2012, an OAR official raised concerns about Beale’s retirement when he informed McCarthy that Beale was still on payroll. Despite being aware of the fact that one of her subordinates was collecting a paycheck without working, the situation continued for 7 more months before McCarthy ever contacted Beale.

In December 2012, McCarthy met with Beale for the first time in nearly 15 months, and he informed her that he was no longer planning on retiring. Two more months passed before concerns with Beale were officially reported to the inspector general. On April 30, 2013, McCarthy had cause to fire Beale, but instead elected to allow him to voluntarily retire with full benefits.

According to the Senate report, Beale’s career at the EPA was marked by relentless dishonesty on matters large and small and a cadre of supervisors who, like McCarthy apparently in the matter of his retirement pay, enabled his self-dealing behaviors.

He claimed an injury so he could ride first-class on flights for government business, which in one case drove the ticket price from $1,000 to $14,000. He forged expense forms, claimed to be away on CIA business for 2½ years worth of work days and flew to Los Angeles and stayed in posh hotels on the EPA’s tab for family visits that had nothing to do with agency work.

Few even attempted to question Beale’s frequent absences, enormous expense reports, exorbitant salary—he retired as the agency’s highest-paid employee—and lack of accountability. He was personally popular, well-connected and believed to be among the agency’s most effective employees.

But Beale’s greatest deception has nothing to do with first-class flights and fancy hotels.

Beale, who is serving a 32-month sentence in the federal prison in Cumberland, Md., for pleading guilty to felony theft of government property, spent most of his career devising regulations under the Clean Air Act that are justified by science few have seen and no one has peer-reviewed, according to the Senate report.

“We should all question how John Beale became a senior official at the EPA and played a major role in long-lasting policy decisions while pulling off a scam I thought only Hollywood could make up,” said Senator David Vitter, R-La.

“But this egregious case helped us successfully reveal how EPA has wasted taxpayer resources and mismanagement in a manner that is far too common.”

Beale’s penchant for bilking the EPA out of money eroded the trust Americans place in their government and EPA employees place in their superiors and coworkers. But it was the role he played beginning in the mid-1990s in creating and implementing regulations pursuant to Clean Air Act that continues to reverberate and linger at the expense of the American people.

Staffers with the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee set out last year to probe the relationship between “sue-and-settle” arrangements and evidence they had uncovered that pointed to the manipulation of scientific data.

What they discovered, as detailed in their report, titled “EPA’s Playbook Unveiled: A Story of Fraud, Deceit and Secret Science,” was how agency officials concealed and misled about the science that underpinned its most significant initiatives and silenced and marginalized their own internal watchdog offices, which enabled the agency to greatly overstate the benefits and underestimate the costs of its Clean Air Act rulemaking.

Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA is required to create National Ambient Air Quality Standards for particulate matter and ozone. The American Lung Association sought to jumpstart this process with a so-called “sue-and-settle” suit filed in 1995.

The idea behind “sue-and-settle” is for friendly plaintiffs to sue a government agency, work out agreeable terms—perhaps even beforehand—and emerge with a court order to implement rules or regulations that could not have been achieved through the democratic or even regulatory process.

The American Lung Association suit resulted in a consent decree that called for the EPA to propose final standards for particulate matter by Nov. 29, 1996, and issue the standards by July 19, 1997. The decree set no deadline for ozone standards because they had been reviewed in 1993 and were not up for another review until 1998.

But Beale and boss Robert Brenner made what documents called a “policy call” and seized on the urgency to produce new particulate matter standards to rush through a new ozone standard as well.

This put the agency in the position of advancing two regulatory standards simultaneously, which it had never done. And it put the agency and those charged with reviewing such regulations, including the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, under impossible deadline pressure.

The EPA admitted in court papers filed pursuant to the American Lung Association lawsuit that any period shorter than Dec. 1, 1998, for promulgation of the particulate matter standard “would require the EPA to reach conclusions on scientific and policy issues with enormous consequences for society before it has had an adequate opportunity to collect and evaluate pertinent scientific data” and that further time was needed to reach a “sound and scientifically supportable decision.”

But Beale had no time for that. He needed an ally to move things along and found one in Carol Browner, the Al Gore acolyte and former staffer who served as EPA administrator through both terms of the Clinton administration. Beale formed a close relationship with her and met with her multiple times per week to discuss his progress on this.

The urgency, as well as his influence with the boss and an unwillingness of others at EPA to block him, gave Beale “the mechanism he needed to ignore opposition to the standards.”

Beale’s efforts to include ozone in the new regulations proved expensive for Americans.

The EPA estimated the cost at $2.5 billion, but its estimate was based on receiving the full benefits of cutting ozone but achieving only a partial attainment of the standards, which the law did not permit. The Council of Economic Advisers also measured the cost and found it to be $60 billion—24 times the EPA estimate.

Indeed, as was the case with him getting away with not showing up for work and submitting exorbitant expense reports, succeeding in this regulatory sleight of hand only emboldened Beale to go further.

That first round of standards, which regulated coarse particulate matter, such as pollen and dust, became known as PM10. But Beale wanted more.

In 1997, with the backing of his superiors, he sought to engage the agency in regulating fine particulate matter—particles a fourth the size of those regulated under PM10 and too small to be visible to the human eye.

But to enact these regulations, EPA first had to produce scientific research that established these smaller particles posed a threat to humans.

To accomplish this, Beale pulled data from two controversial studies—the Harvard Six Cities Study and an American Cancer Society study known as ACSII. The data was not trusted. The air advisory committee pointed out it had not been peer-reviewed, and others indicated Beale was exaggerating the findings for his desired result.

Further undermining those studies’ credibility is that even now, 20 years later, EPA still refuses to release the data, despite McCarthy’s promise to do so during her confirmation hearings.

Though Beal is out of the picture and in prison, his rulemaking techniques he employed to advance the 1997 National Ambient Air Quality Standards for ozone and particulate matter remain firmly entrenched.

“This effort codified EPA’s now customary practice of using fine particulates (PM2.5) to inflate the benefits of nearly all regulations issued under the Clean Air Act,” the Senate report concludes. “Yet the science supporting nearly all of EPA’s alleged benefits remain hidden and unverified.”

[TeamsterGrrrl]

Compared to some of the earlier regs like EPA2007 and 2010, the fuel economy regs actually make sense and are doable- Why else has almost every affected party approved them? Volvo and Daimler are only ticked because the regs won't kill competitor Cummins. Agree you with the need for conformity with the EC regs- The U.S. is too small a market to make it's own regs viable.

[kscarbel2]

Those videos above would leave most people rolling in laughter, if not for the sad fact that this is our reality, an unqualified person leading our EPA.

From EPA 98, the direction and time-frame for tightening truck emissions regulations has been controlled by the EPA, an out-of-control government titan with unqualified leadership, and a smoke-and-mirrors argument. If it was a private company, the incompetent leadership would have run it into the ground years ago.

Most Americans, by nature and training, assume that the president and EPA, i.e. our government, will within acceptable boundaries make reasonable choices in policy, ie. in the best interest of America.

However, the reality is an unqualified but all-powerful Washington has made horrendously bad policy choices which have put the U.S. truck industry through a period of chaos over the last 15 years.

Euro-6 didn't take effect until 2014, when reliable technology was ready. But the EPA, always rushing, enacted the US near equivalent four year earlier.

EPA2004 and EPA2007 cost U.S. truck industry billions, as the EPA in effect forced them to conduct business with truck emissions technology that wasn't far from a science project.

The EPA also was completely out of line by financing Massive EGR technology development (EGR levels from 35 to 50%) for Navistar. The EPA is totally unqualified to become a designer of commercial truck emissions control systems. It isn't within the EPA's mandate to do so.

[41chevy]

This makes the non existent bio additive required by an EPA mandate to be added to gasoline by refiners (who are fined for not adding the non existent additive) seem like a minor hiccup! How did that happen? The EPA felt if the passed the requirement and issued fines for non compliance, a chemical company would develop the additive. None Did! Instead of rolling back the requirement, Gina McCarthy (Charlie McCarthy's daughter) upped the percentage required and doubled the fines for non compliance!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/business/energy-environment/companies-face-fines-for-not-using-unavailable-biofuel.html?_r=1

[Joe Ditchkus]

Why would anyone be surprised by the appointees ?

[41chevy]

MICHAEL BASTASCH

CLIMATE DENIERS ARE NOT NORMAL HUMAN BEINGS!

4:21 PM 06/23/2015

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told an audience Tuesday gathered at a White House conference “normal people,” not “climate deniers” will win the debate on global warming.

McCarthy’s remarks came as she was talking about the reasons why the EPA put out a report on the negative health impacts global warming will have on public health. She said the agency puts out such reports to educate the public, not answer critiques from global warming skeptics. I am ordering the Surgeon General to initiate a "War on Climate Change as a Major Health Issue"

“I am doing that not to push back on climate deniers,” McCarthy told doctors, health professionals and others gathered at a White House summit. “You will be able have fun doing that, but I’ve batted my head against the wall too many times and if the EPA science already hasn’t changed their mind it never will

McCarthy then remarked how “normal people,” and not skeptics and deniers will eventually win the global warming debate. Implicit in her remarks is the contention that skeptics and deniers are not “normal people” but dangerously flawed.

“But in our democracy, it’s not "them" that carries the day,” McCarthy said. “It is the Federal Government and normal human beings that haven’t put their stake into the "deniers" politics above science. It’s normal human beings that listen to us and want us to do the right things for their own good and we will if you help us defeat them.”

[kscarbel2]

The stewardship of our country is at an historical low. But the masses either have no interest in how their country is run, or realize they can't influence how it is run.

We haven't had a qualified president that had the ability to bond and lead the country in decades, and government agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that dictate so much of the policy that effects our daily lives are led by unqualified Washington bureaucrats that are out of control.

Do you see the American people taking issue with this unacceptable situation? No, and the government is thrilled to be able to operate without scrutiny.

Personally, I'm extremely troubled with the direction that our government, industry and society are heading. With proper leadership, our country would be evolving forward (once again), but instead we are regressing.

[41chevy]

Many take issue with the way things are going, but the political machine, the media, the clueless and the gimmies either ignore or label them are radicals or brand them as an anti government group who wants to deny them the things they feel is owed to them. The last few generations are mostly clueless about our past and present and could careless as long as their pleasure path in not interrupted and their Wi Fi is intact. The other clueless group thats making a career of fries and egg mcmuffins, feel they are owed a living by the big bad companies . . . the 1-800 lawyers and the government said so. People have been raised and taught in schools they are owed everything by the country. The government knows whats best. Those that work there butts off the be successful are greedy ba$tarts for not "sharing the wealth" with them.

I was told that I have my own business "you must be loaded". I replied that I work 365 days a year with my salvage business and farm, some weeks I take no salary to pay for my workers or unexpected bills. Best comment was an ex neighbor collecting years of assistance "you work your a$$ off and don't even own a flat screen tv?" Told Him I own a big part of his and may come take it"

L.E.O's with military equipment, government monitoring you on line, the phone or travelling? Most are fine with that because they feel "safe". I was told at the VA if you have nothing to hide why worry.

Prime example of corrupt government is in NYS. The Long Island Power Authority was a public utility which replaced a private company with Stock holders

. The State (Governor Cumo who owns 6500+ shares in the new company) wanted to replace them with a private company. The public comments to our local Representative were open for a month. I sent an E mail the third day, the response was "thank you for you concern, but I have already made my decision for the change"

Obama getting his trade agreement and more power, an MSNBC host calling Hillary Madam President on welcoming her to an interview 2 weeks ago. I will say Mrs Clinton told her "I'm not President yet". The MSNBC host replied "the election is only a mere formality. You're already in" . Comment on it and you will get a better response yelling into a cave.

Sadly, much of this generation and a large part of their parents are less educated them the mid 40's and older. How can a country survive when the next generation is less educated and involved than the previous one?

Want a start on fixing the country? Rein in the Alphabet agencies, Term limits for every politician, Voter ID, Dump the CSEA and other unions for public employees and follow the Constitution and the law. Thats only a small start to the countries recovery.

Thank you for reading my tirade Paul

[kscarbel2]

Many take issue with the way things are going, but the political machine, the media, the clueless and the gimmies either ignore or label them are radicals or brand them as an anti government group who wants to deny them the things they feel is owed to them. The last few generations are mostly clueless about our past and present and could careless as long as their pleasure path in not interrupted and their Wi Fi is intact.

The other clueless group thats making a career of fries and egg mcmuffins, feel they are owed a living by the big bad companies . . . the 1-800 lawyers and the government said so. People have been raised and taught in schools they are owed everything by the country. The government knows whats best. Those that work there butts off the be successful are greedy ba$tarts for not "sharing the wealth" with them.

I was told that I have my own business "you must be loaded". I replied that I work 365 days a year with my salvage business and farm, some weeks I have no salary to pay for my workers or unexpected bills. Best comment was an ex neighbor collecting years of assistance "you work your a$$ off and don't even own a flat screen tv?" Told Him I own a big part of his and may come take it"

L.E.O's with military equipment, government monitoring you on line, the phone or travelling? Most are fine with that because they feel "safe". I was told at the VA if you have nothing to hide why worry.

Prime example of corrupt government is in NYS. The Long Island Power Authority was a public utility which replaced a private company with Stock holders

. The State (Governor Cumo who owns 6500+ shares in the new company) wanted to replace them with a private company. The public comments to our local Representative were open for a month. I sent an E mail the third day, the response was "thank you for you concern, but I have already made my decision for the change"

Obama getting his trade agreement and more power, an MSNBC host calling Hillary Madam President on welcoming her to an interview 2 weeks ago. I will say Mrs Clinton told her "I'm not President yet". The MSNBC host replied "the election is only a mere formality. You're already in" . Comment on it and you will get a better response yelling into a cave.

Sadly, much of this generation and a large part of their parents are less educated them the mid 40's and older. How can a country survive when the next generation is less educated and involved than the previous one?

Want a start on fixing the country? Rein in the Alphabet agencies, Term limits for every politician, Voter ID, Dump the CSEA and other unions for public employees and follow the Constitution and the law. Thats only a small start to the countries recovery.

Thank you for reading my tirade Paul

So many good points. It is truly sad where we stand today, and with no hope for improvement in sight.

[Dirtymilkman]

41chevy and kscarbel2, I would love to have coffee with you guys any day!

[kscarbel2]

Federal officials and an executive from automotive supplier Takata took turns Tuesday explaining to Congress why it took years before any of them took action to protect motorists from a deadly airbag defect and why the safety problem still threatens drivers.

Their testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee came one day after the release of two reports that detailed serious lapses in how both approached their investigations of the problem.

One report, issued by the Transportation Department's inspector general, found critical deficiencies in how the federal agency charged with protecting motorists failed at its job.

Several senators criticized the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) years-long response to the airbag defect, which is responsible for the deaths of at least eight motorists in the United States at latest count.

Even as NHTSA administrator Mark Rosekind pleaded for more investigative staffing, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) said she was reluctant to support that request until the agency cleaned up its act.

"This audit report is one of the worst I've ever seen," she said. "It's not about resources, it's about blatant, incompetent mismanagement."

Citing a portion of the report that noted employees in the agency's Office of Defects Investigation could not agree on a standard of when an investigation into a safety defect should be opened, McCaskill said, "If NHTSA isn't clear on when an investigation should be open, we might as well shut it down."

On Tuesday, DOT inspector general Calvin Scovel told Congress that NHTSA lacks procedures to ensure accurate data is collected, that information collected from consumers is too ambiguous, and that the Office of Defects Investigation doesn't follow standard statistical practices. He recommended 17 particular areas where NHTSA could improve.

Members of Congress drew parallels between NHTSA's failure to recall the deadly airbags and the agency's years-long failures to thwart a deadly General Motors ignition switch defect that at last count was responsible for killing 117 motorists and injuring more than 200 others.

[kscarbel2]

Let us mention the U.S. Department of Transportation’s FAA

Going back to the 1978 airline deregulation act, airline attorneys have been successful in using vague and ambiguous language to claim exemptions from passenger abuse including:

• Intentionally overbooked flights
• Delayed flights
• Cancelled flights
• Unclear disclosure of taxes and fees in published fares
• The ability to change of cancel a ticket
• Schedule changes
• Bumping
• Lost bags
• The refusal to give cash instead of vouchers for involuntary denied boarding compensation
• Tarmac delays
• Excessive ticket change fees

Our deregulated airline industry, in which airfares and fees can be sold for whatever the traffic will bear, was suppose to deliver a cheaper, better flying experience.

So you can’t help but wonder why airline ticket prices have remained high while the cost of jet fuel has plummeted 40 percent.

Because U.S. airlines have consolidated into a handful of giant carriers, they can divide up routes and collude on fares. In 2005 the U.S. had nine major airlines. Now we have just four. And all are politically well-connected.

The American airline industry is nothing less than a cartel, involved in price-fixing and collusion through restriction of supply.

Deregulation, like NAFTA, was a backroom deal requested by big business (the airlines). The sales pitch to the unknowing masses for airline deregulation was a complete fabrication, a brilliantly played out sales pitch totally removed from the truth.

The FAA has long been accused of being too cozy with the airlines. The agency is often cited as an example of "regulatory capture" - in which the airlines openly dictate to its regulators its governing rules, and arranging for beneficial regulation.

During the Bush administration, the FAA actually called the airlines their “customers” and adopted a business model for evaluating its performance. Now, the FAA is calling the airlines "stakeholders."

Talk about a conflict of interest, the American people have airline lobbyists romantically involved with Transportation Department chairmen. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-PA) has been dating Shelley Rubino, a top lobbyist for the leading U.S. airline trade association Airlines for America, since 2014.

(Bud Shuster, Bill’s father, was also a former chairman of the Transportation Committee. Following a long investigation, the Ethics Committee found Bud Shuster engaged in a “pattern and practice” of allowing his former top aide Ann Eppard — a transportation lobbyist — to appear before him on behalf of her clients after she left his staff. The CBS show “60 Minutes” filmed the elder Shuster hiding from TV cameras in the back seat of Eppard’s car in an attempt to conceal his relationship with her. Bud Shuster denied wrongdoing in his dealings with Eppard, but he resigned after the Ethics Committee released its report on him.......like father, like son)

Insulation from state consumer protection laws, inefficient enforcement of federal law, and Congress's unwillingness to pass a “passenger’s bill of rights” has allowed air carriers to stiff passengers without repercussions.

Of all the problems facing government, one of the greatest is the need to rebuild a competent, effective and honest public service.

In the way that the FAA seemingly complies with the demands of the U.S. airlines, rather than regulate the airlines as per its mandate and promote their rise in efficiency and service, I broadly connect that with the fact that not a single U.S. airline is ranked in the Top Ten of global airlines (certainly none of us are surprised).

· Qatar Airways

· Singapore Airlines

· Cathay Pacific Airways

· Turkish Airlines

· Emirates

· Etihad Airways

· ANA All Nippon Airways

· Garuda Indonesia

· EVA Air

· Qantas Airways

Delta ranked 45, the guarantor of nightmares United 60, Alaska 65 and American 79.

The FAA, our employees, agreed earlier this year to allow Southwest Airlines to continue flying 128 aircraft despite the fact that mandatory rudder inspections had not been performed. Apparently the FAA doesn’t know how to effectively express the term “mandatory” to the airlines, and is unclear on the term “regulatory enforcement”.

You may recall 2008, when it came to light that Southwest flew 117 aircraft without mandatory safety checks for a 30 month period. The FAA knew about the lapse in safety at Southwest, but decided to allow the airline to conduct the safety checks on a slower schedule because taking aircraft out of service would have disrupted Southwest Airlines’ flight schedule.

Thus, the American people’s employees at the FAA illegally helped Southwest stay on schedule, and threw the American people’s safety to the curb.

According to statements made by one of the FAA inspectors seeking whistle-blower status, a manager at the FAA “permitted the operation of these unsafe aircraft in a matter that would provide relief” to the airline, even though passengers were on board.

When a U.S. government entity charged with enforcing regulations is itself intentionally breaking those regulations, and yet no person or persons is charged, convicted and jailed, there is little doubt that our government is no longer functioning under our constitution and laws.

When you board an aircraft of a U.S. airline, our laws assure you that the aircraft is certified for flight (up to date with all inspections).

No American on those Southwest flights was ever told/warned their aircraft was past due on inspections.

To learn that your own government is in effect deceiving you, and allowing you to fly on an aircraft of unknown condition due to a lapse in federally required inspections.........is but one of many shocking wake-up calls.

[41chevy]

[TeamsterGrrrl]

Like Social Security, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act this is a done deal- All the involved parties have already signed on. You're of course free to complain at the fuel pumps for the next few decades because your're not spending enough $$$ there...

[41chevy]

Hmmm. Extra $ at pumps or pay $12,000 to $15000 additional on the price of a new truck. If I was a company driver I could careless. I am, sadly, a frowned upon small owner operated business with 5 employees whom appears to interfere with the larger companies who want all the business. I, like many, will find it easier to fire the employees and retire.

Now according to the June 18 2015 Senate hearings on Bio Diesel, Ethanol, LP and the EPA recommendations the public (tax payers) and vehicle owner and commercial vehicles need to pay a Federal Fuel Surcharge, a mere tentative 10.3% increase in Federal fuel tax and "more than likely" a mileage tax of "less than a penny or so per mile" . All this to create an infrastructure to make, store, ship and dispense these types of fuels mentioned above nation wide.