Forget about the migrants locked in cages to putting mechanics in jail for doing their job. At least these guys were WORKING!
President Trump pardoned Mackenzie Spurlock, a diesel mechanic from Wasilla, Alaska, who had been convicted of removing emissions-control equipment from diesel trucks. Trump granted Spurlock full clemency on Friday, restoring all of his civil rights.
Think about that folks. All we want are good working vehicles without the government ruining everything, so if fixing an engine to make it work better is the goal – then that’s exactly what I would want my mechanic to do. And you know how it goes, everything the government touches turns to trash. Case in point? New vehicles and their government-ruined engines.
Spurlock is the co-owner of Matanuska Diesel. He was charged in 2023, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced last year to five years of probation. His attorney noted that Spurlock performed the work on 20 vehicles, charging roughly $1,500 per job. He was one of eight men pardoned the same day, all convicted of Clean Air Act violations for either removing required diesel emissions devices or selling equipment used to do the same.
Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska cheered the pardon and has been pushing back on the emissions rules for years. He and others have pointed out that the pollution-control equipment on diesel vehicles regularly fails in temperatures below 12 degrees, sometimes leaving drivers crawling along at 5 miles per hour in brutal Alaska conditions. Because, apparently, the bureaucrats drawing up these rules had no idea Alaska exists. Sullivan Trump pardon Clean Air Act mechanic sponsored legislation that would require the EPA to rewrite its regulations to account for cold-climate realities.
At a Senate hearing in March, Sullivan made the case plainly. It’s the truck drivers, mechanics, equipment operators, farmers out on remote highways doing the hard work that keeps our communities supplied and our economy moving,” he said, taking a swipe at the D.C. lawyers writing rules they’ll never have to live by.
Of course, the other side showed up too. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, used the hearing to run through his greatest hits, warning that nitrogen oxide, the emission in question, “causes lung disease, reproductive issues, birth defects, kidney problems, nerve damage, autoimmune disease, and cancer.” Because if a Democrat can’t find a way to tie a truck mechanic in Alaska to cancer, what’s even the point of showing up?
To be clear, anti-pollution advocates are firmly opposed to any loosening of the Clean Air Act, crediting the existing rules with dramatically cutting smog in American cities. That is a legitimate debate. But telling a guy in Wasilla that his work truck has to limp along at 5 mph in January because some rule written inside the Beltway says so is a different kind of problem entirely.
Spurlock did not respond to a phone message left at his shop, which, given that he just got a presidential pardon, seems like a pretty good day not to talk to reporters. With his civil rights fully restored and his probation wiped out, Spurlock is free to get back to work. Sullivan’s bill pushing the EPA to rewrite its cold-climate rules is still moving, so the fight over who really gets to decide how trucks run in Alaska is far from over.
