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So everyone has read the first thread on this subject, right?
http://www.steelsoldiers.com/showthread.php?125739-Possibly-No-More-Trucks-from-DLA
That is the thread that was started when this problem first came to light and the thread had a lot of replies and for good reason: With no hard data out there, speculation ran rampant.
When all this began, I contacted some folks I know who are well connected to see if they could find out what the true story was.
Last week, the MVPA released the document that many of you read here or on their website (I've attached it to the bottom of this post). Before you read this thread any further, please go read the document if you haven't already. The document they have produced is well written and is sourced with on-the-record interviews and factual, verified information.
The basic story is that on June 18th, 2014, the DLA contacted GL and told them to stop selling any diesel powered units (vehicles, pumps, welders, compressors, generators, etc.)
This was after the DOD had contacted the EPA and told them that they (DOD) might have violated the CAA by selling items they shouldn't have.
The interested parties (EPA, DLA, DOD) are in talks to resolve the situation. The parties involved are meeting twice a week in order to get the situation resolved.
Ok, great, now we know where we stand.......... but what do we do about it? I want to be proactive and start a campaign!
Last week, I spent all day on the phone, from 8am to after 5pm, talking to various sources. I personally have several days of my life wrapped up in this, where I did not go to work and only dealt with this.
We (the staff at SS) have sources but what they tell us is "off the record" so I can not cite them or repeat here what they've told us.
So I want to try and help the community and dispel some of the rumors and kind of let everyone know what I can, within my very tight limits. I can't provide proof now, but I will attempt to at some point in the future (probably when this is all over).
1. Motivation
This is not politically motivated. There is no input from the administration on this. If you read the release, DLA Disposition Services spokes-man Ken MacNevin specifically said “This action did not originate from the EPA, but rather from within the DoD." That is correct. We have verification of this. Obama is not coming for your army truck.
There is no drive to deny registrations, there is no drive to come and try and grab stuff bought in the past, etc. This is only about current stuff being released. If there is a state which is pursuing such a goal, it's separate from this.
2. Insiders club or clique.
I understand that some people feel like the moderator staff keeping the original thread locked is not fair or right and that "educated guess/LOGIC" discussion isn't being allowed (I am copying that phrase from a pm, but if you wrote it, I don't want you to think I am calling you out, you simply phrased it the best and shortest way so I copied it, thanks!).
The basic reason we have kept the thread locked was because no new information that was reliable was coming out and that only leaves wild speculation and conspiracy theories, which honestly reflect very poorly on our great hobby and make us look less legitimate. I understand that within the hobby there is a fear and suspicion of agencies like the EPA and such, but some the things being posted were simply so inappropriate that they were damaging to our hobby's public perception.
I am very understanding of people's deeply held beliefs-and I have some deeply held beliefs that are not appropriate for public discussion, so believe me, I sympathize.
The simple fact of the matter is that there isn't any way of making an educated guess when you have no facts to educate yourself on to base the guess on.
As information, memos, letters and emails have come up, members have pm'd them to us and we have posted them. As Fire Departments put out info, we posted it. As Senators became involved, we posted updates.
And yes, I realize that you might not have seen any posts that you thought were overly inappropriate. We deleted a lot.
We have struggled with the debate about what's appropriate. We are trying to make the right decisions for the forum and the hobby.
3. What is the reality of the situation? Where do we stand?
Shoot, I can't really say anything. This is a bureaucratic thing. All I can say is all of the parties involved want this to go away. And they are working on it. If you read the MVPA article published, there are 2 meetings a week going on between the EPA and DLA. These people have more things to do at work than have to deal with 2 more meetings every week.
But the situation is not (currently) as bad as many people fear. I am sorry that I can't say more. But the fears that this is part of something larger or it's part of an agenda on anyone's part is luckily not true at all.
4. But what should we do? I feel powerless, shouldn't we be writing to our Representatives? Starting a campaign to help "push" things in our direction?
At this time, we believe that would be counter productive and EVERY SINGLE PERSON I talked to agreed. I formed my opinion based on their opinions about what they they told me about the process.
First off, a campaign wouldn't be effective right now because there is no policy to campaign against.
If you call your rep, be it your Senator or your Representative and say "Hey, the Army won't sell me trucks anymore", they'll call the DLA and they'll say "What's up with this?" and the DLA will say "There's a policy issue with the Clean Air Act and we're looking into it and no decision has been made, but we're working on clearing it up" and the politician will say "Thanks" and you'll be exactly where you started out.
When you call a politician, you need to be able to say "I want you to vote for A or vote against B".
Second, this issue is not currently "politicized"-neither of the parties are interested in it or even know it exists. If we get a few lawmakers involved, we could easily politicize it and make it a "left versus right" issue and the US govt. is simply paralyzed by partisan politics and can't accomplish anything, so you can see where your bill would go-right in to the "never went anywhere category". It's phenomenally more difficult to move a national bill than a state bill.
I want you to think about how a politician thinks: in numbers. Numbers of campaign dollars and numbers of votes. And at the end of the day, if 100 people write their Senator and tell them they want their dirty, polluting Army trucks and 50,000 people write them and tell them they want clean air, who's gonna' win?
Don't make something political that currently isn't. You'll make this a lot harder.
Third, notice in the MVPA article where they said "As Supply Line prepares to go to press most of the industry leaders have decided to take a "wait and see" approach................. and "Until the DOD and EPA reach a decision... it is difficult if not impossible for the Association or it's members to campaign against the temporary halt? What they are saying between the lines is that the big players like TNJ Murray or Memphis Equipment are waiting. These are companies with State Department approval to sell trucks to foreign governments and they make millions of dollars of profit by doing so. They have a bigger interest in this than all of us and you can bet they have more contacts that we do. What do you think they know that we don't?
Fourth, since no policy is in place to campaign against-remember, this is a temporary halt and the EPA may simply decide that the easiest thing to do is extend the National Security Exemption for the life of the vehicle and poof, the problem goes away- what would you campaign against? A temporary halt? It's temporary! No policy or final decision is in place so all you're doing is campaigning for a final outcome that you prefer.
The way this was described to me was "Like going outside with your shotgun, aiming straight up and firing and hoping the duck flies through your field of fire".
I am going to tentatively open this thread and allow discussion, but I will watch it closely and if it devolves, we will close it again. We need to keep our responses professional.
Please be understanding of the difficult job the moderators have-allowing discussion but keeping the site professional and appropriate. If you have any concerns and you do not want to air them publicly, you are welcome to pm me.
http://www.steelsoldiers.com/showthread.php?125739-Possibly-No-More-Trucks-from-DLA
That is the thread that was started when this problem first came to light and the thread had a lot of replies and for good reason: With no hard data out there, speculation ran rampant.
When all this began, I contacted some folks I know who are well connected to see if they could find out what the true story was.
Last week, the MVPA released the document that many of you read here or on their website (I've attached it to the bottom of this post). Before you read this thread any further, please go read the document if you haven't already. The document they have produced is well written and is sourced with on-the-record interviews and factual, verified information.
The basic story is that on June 18th, 2014, the DLA contacted GL and told them to stop selling any diesel powered units (vehicles, pumps, welders, compressors, generators, etc.)
This was after the DOD had contacted the EPA and told them that they (DOD) might have violated the CAA by selling items they shouldn't have.
The interested parties (EPA, DLA, DOD) are in talks to resolve the situation. The parties involved are meeting twice a week in order to get the situation resolved.
Ok, great, now we know where we stand.......... but what do we do about it? I want to be proactive and start a campaign!
Last week, I spent all day on the phone, from 8am to after 5pm, talking to various sources. I personally have several days of my life wrapped up in this, where I did not go to work and only dealt with this.
We (the staff at SS) have sources but what they tell us is "off the record" so I can not cite them or repeat here what they've told us.
So I want to try and help the community and dispel some of the rumors and kind of let everyone know what I can, within my very tight limits. I can't provide proof now, but I will attempt to at some point in the future (probably when this is all over).
1. Motivation
This is not politically motivated. There is no input from the administration on this. If you read the release, DLA Disposition Services spokes-man Ken MacNevin specifically said “This action did not originate from the EPA, but rather from within the DoD." That is correct. We have verification of this. Obama is not coming for your army truck.
There is no drive to deny registrations, there is no drive to come and try and grab stuff bought in the past, etc. This is only about current stuff being released. If there is a state which is pursuing such a goal, it's separate from this.
2. Insiders club or clique.
I understand that some people feel like the moderator staff keeping the original thread locked is not fair or right and that "educated guess/LOGIC" discussion isn't being allowed (I am copying that phrase from a pm, but if you wrote it, I don't want you to think I am calling you out, you simply phrased it the best and shortest way so I copied it, thanks!).
The basic reason we have kept the thread locked was because no new information that was reliable was coming out and that only leaves wild speculation and conspiracy theories, which honestly reflect very poorly on our great hobby and make us look less legitimate. I understand that within the hobby there is a fear and suspicion of agencies like the EPA and such, but some the things being posted were simply so inappropriate that they were damaging to our hobby's public perception.
I am very understanding of people's deeply held beliefs-and I have some deeply held beliefs that are not appropriate for public discussion, so believe me, I sympathize.
The simple fact of the matter is that there isn't any way of making an educated guess when you have no facts to educate yourself on to base the guess on.
As information, memos, letters and emails have come up, members have pm'd them to us and we have posted them. As Fire Departments put out info, we posted it. As Senators became involved, we posted updates.
And yes, I realize that you might not have seen any posts that you thought were overly inappropriate. We deleted a lot.
We have struggled with the debate about what's appropriate. We are trying to make the right decisions for the forum and the hobby.
3. What is the reality of the situation? Where do we stand?
Shoot, I can't really say anything. This is a bureaucratic thing. All I can say is all of the parties involved want this to go away. And they are working on it. If you read the MVPA article published, there are 2 meetings a week going on between the EPA and DLA. These people have more things to do at work than have to deal with 2 more meetings every week.
But the situation is not (currently) as bad as many people fear. I am sorry that I can't say more. But the fears that this is part of something larger or it's part of an agenda on anyone's part is luckily not true at all.
4. But what should we do? I feel powerless, shouldn't we be writing to our Representatives? Starting a campaign to help "push" things in our direction?
At this time, we believe that would be counter productive and EVERY SINGLE PERSON I talked to agreed. I formed my opinion based on their opinions about what they they told me about the process.
First off, a campaign wouldn't be effective right now because there is no policy to campaign against.
If you call your rep, be it your Senator or your Representative and say "Hey, the Army won't sell me trucks anymore", they'll call the DLA and they'll say "What's up with this?" and the DLA will say "There's a policy issue with the Clean Air Act and we're looking into it and no decision has been made, but we're working on clearing it up" and the politician will say "Thanks" and you'll be exactly where you started out.
When you call a politician, you need to be able to say "I want you to vote for A or vote against B".
Second, this issue is not currently "politicized"-neither of the parties are interested in it or even know it exists. If we get a few lawmakers involved, we could easily politicize it and make it a "left versus right" issue and the US govt. is simply paralyzed by partisan politics and can't accomplish anything, so you can see where your bill would go-right in to the "never went anywhere category". It's phenomenally more difficult to move a national bill than a state bill.
I want you to think about how a politician thinks: in numbers. Numbers of campaign dollars and numbers of votes. And at the end of the day, if 100 people write their Senator and tell them they want their dirty, polluting Army trucks and 50,000 people write them and tell them they want clean air, who's gonna' win?
Don't make something political that currently isn't. You'll make this a lot harder.
Third, notice in the MVPA article where they said "As Supply Line prepares to go to press most of the industry leaders have decided to take a "wait and see" approach................. and "Until the DOD and EPA reach a decision... it is difficult if not impossible for the Association or it's members to campaign against the temporary halt? What they are saying between the lines is that the big players like TNJ Murray or Memphis Equipment are waiting. These are companies with State Department approval to sell trucks to foreign governments and they make millions of dollars of profit by doing so. They have a bigger interest in this than all of us and you can bet they have more contacts that we do. What do you think they know that we don't?
Fourth, since no policy is in place to campaign against-remember, this is a temporary halt and the EPA may simply decide that the easiest thing to do is extend the National Security Exemption for the life of the vehicle and poof, the problem goes away- what would you campaign against? A temporary halt? It's temporary! No policy or final decision is in place so all you're doing is campaigning for a final outcome that you prefer.
The way this was described to me was "Like going outside with your shotgun, aiming straight up and firing and hoping the duck flies through your field of fire".
In summation:
It is our strongest belief that we should hold off on a campaign to see where the situation ends up.I am going to tentatively open this thread and allow discussion, but I will watch it closely and if it devolves, we will close it again. We need to keep our responses professional.
Please be understanding of the difficult job the moderators have-allowing discussion but keeping the site professional and appropriate. If you have any concerns and you do not want to air them publicly, you are welcome to pm me.
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