Biden Administration Permits California to Ban Diesel-Powered Heavy Trucks Starting 2036
California can now move forward with its plan to ban new diesel-powered heavy-duty truck sales starting 2036 after receiving the Biden administration’s approval March 31.
“Under the Clean Air Act, California has longstanding authority to address pollution from cars and trucks. Today’s announcement allows the state to take additional steps in reducing their transportation emissions through these new regulatory actions,” the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement.
The EPA usually sets air quality standards for vehicle emissions but has been granting waivers for the Golden State to impose standards stricter than the rest of the country.
Gov. Gavin Newsom lauded the Biden Administration’s permit approval.
“This is a big deal for climate action,” he said in a release. “… [T]hanks to the Biden Administration, we’re getting more zero-emission heavy duty trucks on the roads, expanding our world-leading efforts to cut air pollution and protect public health.”
Newsom, a Democrat, has pushed for aggressive climate measures and a transition to zero-emission transportation in the past few years. He signed an executive order in 2020 (pdf) calling for new heavy-duty vehicles sold in the state to be zero-emission by 2045. However, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) wants to speed up the transition and will consider—at its next meeting April 27—mandating the change for heavier trucks starting Jan. 1, 2036.
The governor’s executive order also asked for all new passenger cars and trucks sold in California to meet the same standard by 2035, which was already approved by CARB last year, making California one of the first in the world to impose such a restriction.
Several industry organizations, truck drivers, and residents are concerned about the speedy transition, including groups that use the busy Los Angeles and Long Beach ports to pick up overseas goods and deliver them across the country.
American Trucking Associations criticized EPA’s permit approval Friday.
“By granting California’s waiver for its so-called ‘advanced clean trucks’ rule, the EPA is handing over the keys as a national regulator,” the organization’s President and CEO Chris Spear said in a statement. “This isn’t the United States of California, and in order to mollify a never satisfied fringe environmental lobby by allowing the state to proceed with these technologically infeasible rules on unworkable and unrealistic timelines, the EPA is sowing the ground for a future supply chain crisis.”
Companies with 50 or more vehicles would be required to meet the new standard.
The proposed regulations (pdf) would require all newly purchased drayage trucks—diesel-fueled heavy-duty trucks that transport shipping containers and bulk freight from seaports to distribution centers—to be zero-emission starting in 2024, aiming for phasing out existing trucks that don’t meet the standard by Jan. 1, 2035. However, CARB would also allow diesel-powered models to operate in the state until the end of their useful life.
Other vehicles that would have to meet the deadline would include box carriers, federal government fleets, off-road tractors, and light-duty delivery vehicles, according to CARB.
For state and local governments, half of all new vehicle purchases would have to be zero-emission from 2024 to 2026. After that, all purchases would have to be zero-emission.
The Otay Mesa Chamber of Commerce, located in Otay Mesa near San Diego along the southern border, told the board in a letter they were concerned about the lack of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, especially in Mexico.
About $60 billion in trade and up to 9,000 truck crossings per day move through Otay Mesa, the chamber’s executive director Alejandra Mier y Teran told The Epoch Times.
“They did this without any kind of analysis,” Teran said. “You have all these Mexican truckers that are crucial for the supply chains in California and there’s not even a possibility with Mexico to have zero-emissions charging stations. It’s crazy.”
The country has yet to develop a plan to install the infrastructure, she said.
Many companies have purchased newer trucks to comply, but because of supply-chain delays, the trucks won’t be delivered by next year’s deadline, Teran said. She asked the board for an exemption for those truckers but was uncertain if that will be granted.
California Fuels and Convenience Alliance, an organization that represents about 90 percent of the state’s independent gas stations and more than half of the convenience stores, sent a letter to CARB opposing the new rule.
“CFCA opposes the adoption of the Advanced Clean Fleets rule as it attempts to transition the goods movement economy too quickly without sufficient charging and fueling infrastructure, lacks consideration of California’s power grid failures, and has not conducted adequate cost analysis,” Alessandra Magnasco, the alliance’s policy manager, wrote in the letter.
Public comment for the proposed rules remains open until April 7.
A spokesperson for CARB did not return a request for comment about the upcoming meeting.
