California tire rules spark backlash from Dunlop Tires, with cost being ‘a real issue’
SACRAMENTO, Calif. —
Dunlop Tires executives spoke out against California’s new tire regulations, raising concerns about cost, safety, and possible environmental impacts.
Dunlop Tires, one of the largest tire manufacturers in the world and based in Southern California, held a more than hour-long press conference with executives on Monday to address the new regulations.
The company’s president and CEO said the new rules will add new challenges and more work for tire manufacturers that could result in a “startling” impact to consumers.
“Will prices increase? You bet they’ll increase,” Dunlop Tires North America President and CEO Darren Thomas said.
He added, “It’s going to be a real issue, in terms of cost, it’s going to go up. By how much? We don’t know. Is there going to be fuel savings? In theory.”
The company also raised concerns about safety, durability, and possible environmental consequences of the rules, while emphasizing that California drivers could save money and improve tire efficiency immediately by keeping their tires properly inflated.
“Generally, when you attempt to regulate something, you don’t understand, or don’t care much about, you create bad policy. And that’s probably what we have here,” Thomas said.
Former California Assemblyman Joe Nation wrote the legislation that gave the California Energy Commission the authority to set these rules more than 20 years ago through AB 884. Nation’s bill set a deadline for the commission to act by 2008, but the agency did not implement the rules until last week.
“To be fair, I haven’t looked at those analyses,” Nation said when asked about the cost concerns in an interview with KCRA 3 on Monday. “The CEC is a really top-notch organization and I’m confident they did it right.”
Nation was asked if he wrote the legislation to save consumers money or for the clean air benefits.
“I will admit, the first thing I thought of was the reduction in emissions,” Nation said.
Nation acknowledged that tire shops across the state have raised concerns about budget tires being removed from their inventory, which could pose challenges for some consumers.
“Budget tires are like budget sushi, or budget anything else. If you buy something that’s well below, that’s cheap, it’s probably lower quality, it’s probably not going to last as long, and you’re probably going to end up buying a new set of tires sooner than you expected,” Nation said.
When asked why it took so long for the commission to act on his legislation, Nation noted the federal government at the time was working to establish its own tire efficiency standards that some worried would usurp California’s. Nation noted the rules would have been an easier sell to Californians in the early 2000s but would have faced greater resistance in 2008.
“The latter part of 2008 and early 2009 with the great recession, no, it probably would have been just as tough or maybe even tougher than now,” Nation said.
Republican state Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Huntington Beach, who voted against giving the commission this authority in 2003, criticized the new rules.
“This is a death by a thousand cuts. These folks are tone deaf,” Strickland said.
Strickland has called on all members of the California Energy Commission to resign. None of the commissioners had responded to Strickland’s call as of Monday afternoon.
“At a time when people can’t afford to live in California, they’re making it more difficult to live in California,” he added.
The leader of the California Energy Commission defended the new regulations, stating that safety and durability of tires will not be compromised.
The commission’s chairman, David Hochschild, also noted that the rules will have a significant environmental impact, equivalent to removing 400,000 cars from the road in terms of air quality.
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