3930 University Drive

Fairfax, Virginia 22030 (703) 591

- 7130

January 31 , 20 11

Submitted Online @ Regulations.gov

Environmental Protection Agency 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Washington, DC 20460

Attention Docket: EPA

- HQ

- OAR

- 2010

- 0162

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration U.S. Department of Transportation West Building, Rm. W12

- 140 1200 New Jersey Ave., SE Washington, DC 20590

Attention Docket: NHTSA

- 2010

- 0079

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards and Fuel Efficiency Standards for M edium

- and Heavy

- Duty Engines and Vehicles

To Whom It May Concern:

A. Statement of Interest

RVDA

– the National RV Dealers Association

-- represents an industry with over 3, 1 00 RV dealerships

with annual sales over $19 billion dollars employing almost 43,000 individuals with a payroll in excess of $1.6 billion dollars (2007 Economic Census). RVDA’s membership sells roughly 80% of national
travel trailer sales, and 90% of motor home sales. The vast majority of our dealer members are small

busin esses as defined by the Small Business Administration.

RVDA is supportive of the efforts to make our country cleaner and our vehicles more fuel efficient

. The RV lifestyle is complementary with EPA’s goals of a healthy outdoors environment and appreciati on for the natural beauty of the United States. A cleaner environment benefits all of us. However, RVDA be lieves that this regulation, as proposed, will have a material negative impact on RV industry sales, and related RV industry jobs.RVDA Comments

– January 31, 2011

– EPA/NHTSA Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards for RVs

2

B. RVs are a Discretionary Recreation Lifestyle, Not A Commercial Enterprise

Recreation vehicles are not commercial vehicles. Unlike commercial trucks, RV enthusiasts are not on the road in the same manner as commercial vehicle drivers. RVs driven by their owners ar e not subject to federal FMCSA requirements requiring special licenses, logs of hours, safety inspections and health and alcohol/drug related c ertifications. Individuals who purchase an RV enjoy the ability to travel to

their favorite locations with their own personal belongings. RVs contain beds, bathrooms, kitchen s
, entertainment systems , and offer people the ability to travel with their pets and the ability to sleep in a remote location, or to camp in an RV park with all the electric and plumbing hooku ps. Industry estimates are that the average RV user will take four to five trips per year. This is in no way analogous to a commercial enterprise or commercial purpose for an RV

.

There is a niche RV lifestyle for fulltime RV enthusiast s , nicknamed “fullti mers
, ” who travel from place to place to enjoy different locations. Of all the RV owners, fulltimers are the individuals who travel most extensively on the nation’s highways. According to a 2005 Escapees’ RV Club demographic survey, the average number of miles traveled per year by their fulltimer members was only 11,821 miles (10,000 median). 1 This is in stark contrast to the sheer number of commercial truck

drivers on the road , and their annual mileage. According to the American Trucking Association, Class 8 truck drivers will average over 45,000 miles behind the wheel, and most individual long

- haul drivers average from 100,000 to 110,000 miles driving per year. 2 Therefore, the highest users of RVs, which is a very small niche of the RV industry, driv e only a quarter of the annual mileage of a Class 8 Driver,

and one

- tenth the mileage of a long

- haul driver.

Motorhome sales in 2007, 2008 and 2009 were 55,400, 28,300 and 13,200, respectively 3

Medium

- and heavy

- duty trucks sales in 2007, 2008 and 2009 were 8,668,292, 6,526,974, and 4,966,803, respectively 4

RVs are discretionary purchases and this is a critical difference because potential motorhome buyers

are much more likely to defer or abandon purc hasing a motorhome due to economics. This was evident during the recent recession when motorhome sales fell 49% in 2008 and 53% in 2009 while sales for

medium

- and heavy duty trucks in total fell only 25% and 24%, respectively during the same period.

C

. EPA’s Regulation Further Injures the Recovering RV Industry

The RV industry lost tens of thousands of jobs during the recession and is only now slowly refilling those positions. Creating unnecessary regulatory burdens on small businesses which produc e and retail discretionary vehicles that average some 4,500 to 5,000 miles per year is unreasonable.

In 2009, President Barack Obama visited Elkhart County, Indiana, the so

- called RV manufacturing capital of the world

, to pitch his stimulus package. Whit e House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama wanted to go where the nation's economic problems are “acute” as part of “ his effort to co nvince

1 http://www.escapees.com/edocs/demographics.pdf

2 http://www.truckline.com/Programs/Documents/Image%20Tools%20and%20Information/Trucking%20Industry.pdf

3 RVIA Industry Profile 2009

. 4 Automotive New s Data Center

.RVDA Comments

– January 31, 2011

– EPA/NHTSA Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards for RVs

3

Congress to move swiftly” to pass the stimulus package . At th e time of the president's visit, the unemployment rate in Elkhart County was 17.5 percent. Last year in 2010, the unemployment rate was down to 14 percent, still well above the national average, but moving in the right direction.

D. EPA Should Strongly C onsider President Obama’s Recent Executive Order

President Obama’s Presidential Memoranda

- Regulatory Flexibility, Small Business, and Job Creation dated January 18, 2011, in part states...

Accordingly, I hereby direct executive departments and agencies a nd request independent agencies, when initiating rulemaking that will have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities, to give serious consideration to whether and how it is appropriate, consistent with law and regulatory objec tives, to reduce regulatory burdens on small businesses, through increased flexibility. As the RFA recognizes, such flexibility may take many forms, including:

•extended compliance dates that take into account the resources available to small
entities; •performance standards rather than design standards; •simplification of reporting and compliance requirements (as, for example, through streamlined forms and electronic filing options); •different requirements for large and small firms; and •partial or tot al exemptions.

I further direct that whenever an executive agency chooses, for reasons other than legal limitations, not to provide such flexibility in a proposed or final rule that is likely to have a significant economic impact on a substantial number o f small entities, it should explicitly justify its decision not to do so in the explanation that accompanies that proposed or final rule.

EPA’s proposal will have an impact on a substantial number of RV manufacturers, and a substantial impact on RV sales. NHTSA has already chosen to exempt RVs from this regulation, and EPA’s inclusion of RVs is very surprising considering the small size of the RV market served in comparison to the size of the commercial trucking industry.

Given the fact that EPA has d ecided to apply its standards to non

- commercial vehicles while NHTSA has decided to do exactly the opposite, the proposal is clearly not in keeping with the President’s directive that federal agencies harmonize their requirements. If the agencies are goi ng to comply with the Executive Order, they must have a common position with respect to the treatment of non

commercial vehicles.

E. The Energy and Independence Security Act of 2007

The issue of non

- commercial vehicles was addressed by Congress when it created the Energy and Independence Security Act of 2007 (EISA). By limiting the medium

- and heavy

- duty vehicle fuel consumption mandate to commercial trucks, EISA reflected and appropriately dealt with the important

distinctions that exist between com mercial and non

- commercial vehicles.RVDA Comments

– January 31, 2011

– EPA/NHTSA Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards for RVs

4

RVDA recognize s that EPA is not bound by the EISA mandate, however, for the reasons discussed previously we believe that the rule will impact private individuals (purchasers of non

- commercial vehicles) in a manner t hat is very different from the way in which it will impact commercial businesses and that it would therefore be inappropriate to extend the applicability of the requirements to non

commercial vehicles.

F. Regulatory Flexibility Act Requirements

E P A w i l l n e e d t o a d d r e s s t h e R e g u l a t o r y Flexibility A c t ( “ R F A ” ) requirements f o r t h i s p r o p o s a l o n t h e
R V i n d u s t r y
, i n c l u d i n g R V m a n u f a c t u r e r s a n d R V d e a l e r s

. The key requirement of the law is that federal agencies must analyze the impact of their regulatory actions on small b u s i n e s s e s and, where the regulatory impact is likely to be "significant", affecting a "substantial number" of these small entities,

seek less burdensome alternatives for them. T h i s r e g u l a t i o n w i l l h a v e a n i m p a c t o n t h e e n t i r e R V

i n d u s t r y
, m a d e u p o f R V m a n u f a c t u r e r s a n d R V d e a l e r s

.

RVDA fee ls that should EPA intend to cover recreational vehicles under this proposal, then it must perform a separate and detailed Regulatory Flexibility Analysis on the rules impact on non

- commercial industries, i.e. the RV industry. T h e E P A must assess the economic impact that is specific to non

commercial vehicles and it should not attempt to apply a cost

- benefit assessment for commercial vehicles to personal use vehicles such as motorhomes.

E P A w i l l n e e d t o l o o k a t t h e n u m b e r o f m o t o r h o m e o w n e r s
, d u r a t i o n o f t r i p s b y m o t o r h o m e o w n e r s
, t h e n u m b e r o f h o u r s t h e y a r e o n t h e r o a d

, a n d t h e n u m b e r o f m i l e s d r i v e n b y m o t o r h o m e o w n e r s

. L i k e w i s e t h e E P A w i l l n e e d t o a d d r e s s t h e c o s t s f o r a l i m i t e d n o n

- c o m m e r c i a l m a r k e t s e g m e n t t o

c o m p l y w i t h t h e c o s t s t h e E P A i n t e n d s p l a c e o n t h e c o m m e r c i a l t r u c k i n g i n d u s t r y

. U s i n g i n d u s t r y

e s t i m a t e s
, t h e a v e r a g e R V o w n e r t a k e s f o u r t o f i v e t r i p s p e r y e a r
, f

o r g e n e r a l l y l e s s t h a n 5 0 0 0 m i l e s

t o t a l

. R V D A b e l i e v e s that o n c e t h e E P A p e r f o r m s t h i s a n a l y s i s
, i t w i l l f i n d t h a t t h e d r a m a t i c c o s t s t o

t h e R V i n d u s t r y d o n o t o u t w e i g h t h e l i m i t e d e n v i r o n m e n t a l b e n e f i t s

.

Respectfully Submitted,



### Wm. Brett Richardson

_____________________________ Wm. Brett Richardson , Esq

. , MBA, CAE RVDA Director of Legal & Regulatory Affairs 3930 University Dr., Fairfax VA 22030

Brichardson@RVD A.org (703) 591

- 7130