ATA Testifies on Concerns About Climate-Change Legislation

An American Trucking Associations official told a Senate committee Tuesday that climate-change legislation would impose significant costs on American consumers.

Ray Kuntz, chairman of ATA’s executive committee and the group’s immediate past chairman, said that any substantial cost increases imposed directly or indirectly on trucks by climate change legislation will curtail the delivery of vital consumer goods across the nation such as food, medicine, and clothing.

“Constraining the country’s freight delivery system would change our way of life for the worse by significantly increasing the cost of everything we buy,” Kuntz testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Kuntz, chairman and chief executive officer of Watkins and Shepard Trucking, Helena, Mont., cited that in addition to increased fuel costs, any climate-change legislation should include the following points.

• It must address the need to improve highway infrastructure to reduce carbon output.

• Carbon oversight markets must carefully be monitored and transparent to prevent excessive speculation.

• Trucking needs to be addressed differently than passenger vehicles because trucks are not discretionary users.

• State transportation emissions reduction plans must not impede the delivery of goods.

• Federal regulations must preempt regional, state and local carbon laws to prevent a patchwork jumble of laws that would impede transportation efficiency.

• Oil refiners should receive appropriate free carbon allowances for fuel production to help offset significant price increases for refined products.

Kuntz serves on ATA’s Sustainability Task Force, which developed a progressive sustainability agenda that will reduce fuel consumption by 86 billion gallons and carbon dioxide emissions by 900 million tons for all vehicles over the next 10 years.

Click here to read Kuntz’s full testimony. (PDF)