New Heavy-Duty Vehicle Emission Plan Enters Final Phase
On March 29th, the Biden-Harris administration and the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled the final version of a new plan.
This new plan is the final version of the “Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles – Phase 3”.
These rules set strict limits on how much pollution heavy-duty vehicles like big trucks and buses can emit from 2027 to 2032. This new plan aims to avoid 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions and provide cleaner, healthier air for 72 million Americans who reside next to truck freight routes and are at higher health risks due to air pollution.
To quote the EPA’s website:
“The ‘Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles – Phase 3’ standards will provide greater certainty for industry, while catalyzing private investment, supporting U.S. manufacturing jobs in advanced vehicle technologies, and invigorating and strengthening the U.S. economy. Over the next decade, these final standards, paired with President Biden’s historic Investing in America agenda and investments in U.S. manufacturing, will set the U.S. heavy-duty sector on a trajectory for sustained growth.” – https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/biden-harris-administration-finalizes-strongest-ever-greenhouse-gas-standards-heavy
Cleaner Technology a Major Emphasis
The EPA says these new standards will give trucking companies clearer rules to follow. The 1 billion tons of emissions they aim to avoid equals the pollution from 13 million tanker trucks of gasoline. They hope this will encourage companies to invest in cleaner technology, like electric or hybrid engines. This will also create more jobs and boost the economy.
The “Phase 3” plan tells truckmakers they need to cut down on how much carbon their vehicles release. They can pick from different clean technologies, like better gas engines, electric or hybrid setups, or even hydrogen fuel cells.
This plan does not require trucking companies to switch to these new, cleaner trucks. They can still use older ones if they want.
What is the Potential Impact on Smaller Trucking Companies?
Not everyone is on board with the plan. The opposition includes Jim Mullen, who was the acting administrator and Chief Counsel of the US Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration from 2018 to 2020. Referencing the Clean Freight Coalition study by the Roland Berger fund, he claims that the cost would be “just shy of a trillion dollars to build out the infrastructure to electrify medium and heavy new trucks in the nation.”
Mullen also predicts a “pre-buy” of used trucks as was seen by the emission standards of 2010. Many companies either extended the life of their truck’s engines or purchased older trucks, as opposed to buying newer ones that were built with the current emission standards. Mullen also claims that “half the trucks on the road are pre-2010 engines.” And while he didn’t express concern for larger freight companies, he expressed worry about the costs for smaller operations. Mullen claimed that “95% or so of all the trucking companies in the country are less than 10 trucks,” and was apprehensive about how the out-of-pocket cost of this bill would affect these businesses.
With a few years left until the bill takes effect, we will begin to see how freight companies are affected by these changes.
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