Orca Bay Seafoods v. Northwest Truck Sales, Inc. Kamco, Inc., an Oklahoma Corporation

KLEINFELD, Circuit Judge:

Congress passed a law requiring true odometer disclosures on transfers of vehicles. The Secretary of Transportation wrote a regulation exempting large trucks. We hold that the regulation is invalid.

FACTS

Orea Bay Seafoods bought a truck in which the odometer showed much less than the true mileage, so it sued the used truck dealer from which it bought the truck, Northwest Truck Sales, and the truck’s previous owner, Kamco, Inc. Orea bought the truck from Northwest in 1989, which had bought it a few days earlier from Kamco. It was a 1987 Mercedes diesel weighing more…