Court Lets Calif. Reefer Rule Stand
A federal court denied an American Trucking Associations petition requesting that the full court reconsider a three-judge panel’s previous decision that let California’s “reefer retrofit” rule stand.
“Upon consideration of [the] petition . . . and the absence of a request by any member of the court for a vote, it is ordered that the petition be denied,” the court said in a posting Thursday.
The California Air Resources Board has been enforcing the phased-in transport refrigeration unit, or TRU, rule, since Jan. 1.
In its petition filed in May before the 13-judge U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, ATA had argued the regulation was in effect a national rule since it required that any refrigerated truck doing business in California — and not just domiciled motor carriers — comply.
“We are disappointed,” said ATA spokesman Clayton Boyce. “We knew securing [full-court] review was a long shot, but thought the well-reasoned dissent in the previous decision would have helped the argument that California was creating a de-facto national standard that was unfair to carriers based outside of California.
“This case does not raise the types of issues that would make it a candidate for Supreme Court review and therefore ATA will likely not pursue this litigation further,” he said in an e-mailed statement.
