What is the impact of government’s failure to consider consequences? The story of the California Air Resources Board’s Diesel Particulate Filter and Federal Forest Management may be illustrative. Ideologically-driven governments fail to coordinate, creating more problems.
In 1998 California identified diesel exhaust particulate matter (PM) as a toxic air contaminant based on its potential to cause cancer, premature death, and related air quality health problems.
The first player: California Air Resources Board (CARB)
Led by activist lawyer Mary D. Nichols, CARB adopted the Diesel Risk Reduction Plan in 2000, establishing control measures reducing diesel particulate matter risks and sets goals in 2010 of 75 percent PM reduction and 85 percent by 2020.
Primary among its solutions was to require Diesel Particulate Filters (DPF) in all diesel vehicles. However, there were better, cheaper, and more effective means to control particulate than a DPF Filter which existed but were ignored.
As an engine process component, DPF is risky and highly likely to fail. Failure comes from public and commercial operator inaction, presenting risks fundamentally from maintenance of (1) inlet plumbing due to air leaks and mass air intake imbalance affecting computer driven regeneration cycles, (2) unaddressed fuel injector deterioration, (3) failure to utilize "low-ash" oils, (4) leaky turbos, (5) sticky EGR Valve, (6) faulty diesel glo-plugs, (7) clogged filters, (8) failure to sustain shorter oil change interval-avoiding engine particulate build-up, and (9) the active regeneration phase where the DPF becomes a combustion chamber.
The second player: U.S. Government land management
The federal government now owns one-third of U.S. land, managed by four federal agencies: (1) Bureau of Land Management, (2) Fish and Wildlife Service, (3) Forest Service, and (4) National Park Service.
These agencies (with $8.1 billion in annual budgets) are not doing a good job. Their short-falls include agency maintenance backlogs on public land exceeding $12 billion, land-building equipment accounts receivable and payable issues at the Department of Agriculture, inaccurate accounting as to actual land under management, and a general inability of federal land managers to care for public land under their oversight.
For the last 100 years, the U.S. Forest Service has practiced the total fire suppression forest management process. Many smaller fires have been prevented, allowing small trees, forest litter, and underbrush to build up over time.
Out-of-control fires increase underbrush fuel load in forests, stimulating fires so intense that trees are largely killed off, leaving more fire-prone chaparral. Drought is yet another problem.
Fires are generally attributed to human intervention. The flammable nature of California’s coastal chaparral brush lands is a well-known threat within the Department of Forestry, who publishes fire hazard maps for the state.
The maps certainly don’t cause government action to prevent forest fuel loads from accumulating. And the fuel available to the fire is not well-managed.
The State of California owns very few of the forests within its borders, which further complicates the issue. Most forests are owned by the federal government or private landowners.
Unintended Consequences
Below you can see the results of a DPF-initiated fire and its consequences, right in my neighborhood. The fire inspector identified the "soot trail" from the regeneration process directly to the fire starting point.
California’s DPF mandates affect property, citizen freedom, and security for two reasons. First, it is a fire hazard in a fire-prone state. Good forest management is non-existent. Second, it impacts the logistics of the state and citizen.
DPF--after $10-to-$20K cost-- holds the potential to force (1) small operators out-of-business due to dramatically increased costs of equipment upgrade or replacement, (2) near-term truck shortage, (3) limiting transportation of highly perishable farm-to-market fresh fruits, meats, and vegetables distribution, (4) farming industry high spoilage and economic loss as farmers abandon industry statewide, (5) increased costs in urban areas with product availability impacted, and (6) an expectation that many small family farms cannot financially survive.
This is how centralized governments that are driven by singular projects from agenda-based lobbies produce outcomes it had not considered before implementation, and they demonstrate little concern post-event. Government continues to inject greater control, consequences be damned.
Centralized government control has failed in every implementation throughout the world. Only in the United States did a group of citizens compound a government that could overcome centralization, rise above historic societal abuses, and ensure each citizen strong self-governance and freedom.
Where is that government now?
Join the Convention of States. The states were originally recognized as a sovereign partner with citizens in founding the federal government. We can speak again through our Constitution’s Article V authority to repair and return the federal government to its intended role.
What, pray tell, have you got to lose? If you do nothing, only your freedom.
