VOLUME 35 | ISSUE 38
WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 21, 2023
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Training for the open road virtually Air quality group targets Colorado smokestacks BY MICHAEL BOOTH THE COLORADO SUN
ing all aspects of the program, classroom, backing maneuvers on parking, teaching shifting, and on the road driving,” Peppler said. Peppler said the program began sometime in the 1990s. The school also trains students on backhoes and forklifts at some point in time. There are jobs for all kinds of heavy equipment operators, she said. “There have been lots of changes to management, to employees and the demand and supply of students and drivers over the years,” Peppler said. “We have equipment now, a lot better parking lots for training, and we have a lot of business partners that are ready to help get students their first job out of school.”
A series of Colorado’s largest greenhouse gas-emitting sectors have come under the regulatory knife for cuts in recent years: oil and gas producers, gasoline vehicles, large buildings, cement plants and coal-fired utilities. Now a secondary tier of big-name greenhouse gas polluters is facing new rules from an Air Quality Control Commission vote this month, with the goal of 20% emissions reductions from a 2015 benchmark at industrial companies like Suncor, Molson Coors, Cargill Meat Solutions and Leprino Foods. While the industries argue a 2030 timeline for those cuts is too quick and expensive, environmental and neighborhood groups say the state’s draft rules for the legislation-mandated cuts won’t actually reduce greenhouse gases for at least seven years. They also say a trading plan to allow the 18 sites on the list to buy carbon credits to meet the rules is a game where the same side always loses: low-income and high-minority neighborhoods disproportionately impacted by decades of harmful pollutants. The idea of a big company like Suncor buying carbon credits from a greener company instead of cutting pollution at their own facility, next to those beleaguered neighbors, is only one objection environmental groups are bringing to an Air Quality Control Commission vote at the Sept. 20-22 meetings. The main topic for the commission’s meeting is the proposed rule fulfilling a mandate from the 2021 legislature requiring 20% cuts by 2030 in the greenhouse gas emissions of a third tier of Colorado’s largest polluters. The by-far largest polluters, utilities, were targeted in previous legislation and rules, while the second tier of only four industrial sources was
SEE TRAINING, P5
SEE AIR QUALITY, P11
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• Vestas to lay off 200 employees
Jacob Morey is training the truck driving simulator. It’s his first week in the CDL program. The simulator is teaching him how to drive a stick shift, trying to match the clutch movement and pedal movement on what the computer is telling him to do an PHOTO BY BELEN WARD order of operations. Semi-truck has a double clutch.
BUSINESS
Aims adds big truck simulator for CDL program BY BELEN WARD BWARD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
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•27J Schools moves online-only Dec. 1
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A new piece of equipment will let Aims Community College’s commercial truck-driving students get the feel of driving on the open road without leaving the classroom. The school recently added a Commercial Drivers License simulator to the Fort Lupton campus, part of an effort to meet the demand for new truck drivers shortage. “The simulator is a great tool, in addition to being behind the wheel of an actual truck, “ said
Martin Rubalcaba, Aims Community College Program Director. “It gives the student confidence, knowing that they can drive a virtual truck; we see it as a tool, instead of damaging existing equipment when they don’t know how to shift the truck properly.” Rubalcaba has been teaching for a year but was a truck driver for 14 years. “They will be able to learn digitally. Hopefully, by the time they get in the truck, they will be more polished and ready for the actual truck.” Before she got into the program, Lynette Peppler was a stay-athome mom raising her family for 25 years. Now she has her CDL career driving semis. “I’ve had my CDL for about four years and have been CDL train-
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Governor meets community college apprentices P3