Headaches & Airbrakes

Without truckers, America would grind to a halt. There’s no doubt about it. Truckers work a demanding job delivering our food, clothes and other necessities. But rather than support our hard-working men and women behind the wheel, President Joe Biden continues to empty their wallets and force them to drive electric trucks for his radical climate-change agenda. Well, we are pushing back.
The Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and California have no right or legal justification to force truckers to follow their radical climate-change policies. That’s why I, along with 18 other state attorneys general, are taking Biden to court. Iowa’s trucking industry employs about 100,000 Iowans. That is nearly one in 13 of our state’s workers. Meanwhile, Biden’s illegal truck ban puts the whole industry at risk. The Biden administration has set us on track to devastate the nation’s biofuels industry, hike prices for businesses and truckers, and designate California as a leading decision-maker in the trucking industry.

BIDEN ADMIN ECO RULE CURBING OIL DRILLING, MINING FACES WIDESPREAD Opposition In March, the Biden administration’s EPA violated the Constitution by granting California a waiver to issue its own set of truck emissions standards. Those radical standards go further than the regulations set for the rest of the country and effectively ban the sale of gas or diesel trucks.
California and eight other states have embraced the radical, climate-change regulation that will force trucking companies to purchase expensive and inferior vehicles.
California’s truck ban requires that about 55% of delivery vans and small trucks, 75% of buses and larger trucks, and 40% of tractor-trailers and other big rigs be fully electric by 2035. By 2045, gas and diesel trucks will be outright banned from being sold in California.   But it gets much worse. Due to the Biden administration’s waiver, it is likely that these rules will impact not just California, but America in its entirety. Since California has such a large economy – the fifth largest in the world – its radical climate-change agenda influences the entire trucking industry.
States are forced to comply with California’s zero-emissions standards to compete in the market. This incentivizes truck manufacturing companies to spike prices for gas and diesel vehicles so that Americans won’t buy them.   Eight other states have already adopted California’s sweeping truck ban, including Colorado, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. Connecticut, Maine and North Carolina are following in their footsteps.

Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution does it say that California gets to make the rules for the rest of the country. On the contrary, the Constitution requires equal sovereignty among the states, meaning that one state does not get special treatment to set the standards for everyone else.

In fact, the Clean Air Act provision used to justify the EPA’s waiver is unconstitutional precisely because it violates the equal sovereignty principle. The EPA’s waiver also triggers the major-questions doctrine, a legal principle that means big regulations need to go through Congress, rather than unelected bureaucrats. And make no mistake, with California’s truck ban, rural America will be left in the dust. Charging stations are scarce in the countryside. Considering electric trucks have significantly shorter range than gas or diesel trucks, traveling an average of about 870 to 1,050  fewer miles between fueling, supply chain nightmares lie ahead.
States are forced to comply with California’s zero-emissions standards to compete in the market. This incentivizes truck manufacturing companies to spike prices for gas and diesel vehicles so that Americans won’t buy them.
Despite being two to three times more expensive, electric trucks are also less efficient. Rather than 15 minutes to fill up, electric trucks take 10 hours to fully charge. And if we have learned anything from California’s rolling blackouts, it’s that our power grid isn’t ready to support the sharp influx of electric vehicles. The issues are endless.
The harsh reality for the trucking industry – which already faces increased operations costs, rising fuel prices and a shortage of drivers – is that it will be forced to cut jobs and make other challenging decisions as a result of the expensive regulations that threaten to put truckers out of business altogether.
As attorneys general, we aren’t going to take a backseat as the Biden administration and California attempt to impose their radical climate agenda and regulate truckers out of business. It’s time to hit the brakes on the California truck ban, and our lawsuit will do just that.

Factoring: Beware of the fine print
JULY 7, 2023•
Land Line Staff

For some truckers, factoring is just a part of their business plan. They research the companies, read the contracts carefully and make thoughtful decisions. Others who are needing a quick infusion of cash, might not be that careful or take enough time to really know what they are getting themselves into.For those who may not know, factoring is basically an agreement between your company and a factoring company that provides you with cash advances in exchange for your company’s invoices or accounts receivable.The factoring company will charge a factoring fee, which is usually around 2-5% and upward, depending on the specific company. Some factoring companies will also add a service charge and/or interest based on how long it takes the customer to pay the invoice. Make sure you know the fee structure before you sign the agreement.

The Business Services Department at the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association has recently been fielding a number of calls regarding factoring contracts – and the fact that ELD authorizations and waiver wording is popping up. For example from the TAFS, Inc. contract:“The undersigned client (“Client”) of TAFS, Inc., a Kansas corporation (“TAFS”), utilizes an electronic logging device (ELD) to keep records of duty service as required by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. As a material condition of doing business with TAFS, Client hereby expressly authorizes its current and future ELD provider(s) to grant TAFS unlimited access to all data recorded through Client’s ELD system, including, but not limited to, location data for Client’s equipment, and expressly consents to the transfer to and use by TAFS of all such data. Client hereby waives and releases and forever discharges TAFS and its ELD provider(s), and their respective employees, agents, affiliates, successors and assigns, of and from any and all claims, demands, counterclaims, liabilities, obligations, suits or causes of action of any kind or nature whatsoever arising from or related to the access, transfer and/or use as authorized hereunder.”

So what could happen if you refuse to share your ELD data after signing a contract saying you would? Instead of getting paid quickly with the standard deductions, you could be forced to wait until the factoring company gets paid, which defeats the purpose of factoring invoices to begin with. Power of attorney Another key piece of contract language to watch for is anything that gives the factoring company power of attorney over your business.
The language can range from very limited to extremely far-reaching in scope. Back to the TAFS factoring agreement, as an example. The company’s contract includes an extensive list of business dealings that TAFS can conduct on behalf of the trucking company. It includes dealing with insurance claims, directing where and how payments are made, suing for collections (on your dime), etc.

Be mindful that when you sign over power of attorney you are limiting your ability to make your own business decisions. Again, OOIDA cautions that every clause in these factoring contracts be gone over with a fine-tooth comb by someone familiar with the pitfalls of contract language. OOIDA warns that similar language like the two examples above could be incorporated into contracts from other factoring companies and all contracts should undergo a thorough review.
Breaking up is hard to do, Some factoring agreements include minimum volume terms that could cost you thousands of dollars in fees that weren’t really considered an issue until you decided to part ways with the factoring company.
If your company was invoicing for $15,000 a month when you entered the factoring agreement and later dropped to half that volume, the factoring company is sure to have kept track of the fees it lost because of the downturn. Now that you’ve decided to terminate, the reduction in fees becomes a real problem that could translate into substantial costs for you. Be clear about minimum volume requirements prior to signing the agreement.
You could face other problems when terminating a factoring agreement. Although they’re not common practice among reputable factoring companies, you should still be aware of them. Some factoring companies require at least a year’s commitment, and they may also have agreements that include automatic renewal provisions unless you give them a specified amount of notice. These agreements may also include early termination penalties.
It’s very important that you know of these provisions before you sign the contract. Some unscrupulous factoring companies have charged extremely unreasonable termination penalties and have also required lengthy notice of termination. This could cost you big. For example, consider this scenario: When you decided to factor with your current factoring company, they filed a public document informing all interested parties that it has rights to your invoices as collateral for the advances it makes to you as per the agreement. This is normal procedure. The document is called a UCC Financing Statement or UCC-1, and is filed in the public location(s) dictated by the laws of the individual state(s) where you do business. UCC (Universal Commercial Code) refers to the collection of laws dealing with commercial business.
Let’s say that your current factoring company can no longer meet your needs – or the rates are too high. You want to terminate and switch to a new factoring company. However, as long as this UCC-1 filing is in place, it’s difficult, and sometimes impossible, for another company to take over your factoring needs.
If the original factoring agreement requires a lengthy notice of termination – sometimes as much as 120 days or more – the UCC-1 filing won’t be released until that time has passed. LL
Thank You for reading and God Bless Your every move. Nick Manis