As part of its aggressive green agenda, the Biden administration on Friday imposed new strict pollution standards for buses, trucks, and other heavy-duty vehicles that would all but necessitate electrification.
Released by the Environmental Protection Agency, the rule progressively restricts the level of pollution trucks can legally emit across a manufacturer’s offerings for model years 2027 through 2032.
The rule applies to vehicles, including tractor-trailers, school buses, R.V.s, garbage trucks, and cement mixers, and aims to combat climate impact from this part of the transportation sector.
“Today’s announcement is a big one in terms of cleaning up the pollution from these vehicles on our roads and highways and importantly, the pollution that impacts our communities and our kids,” White House national climate adviser Ali Zaidi told CNN.
While the rule doesn’t require conversion to or replacement by electric vehicles, it effectively demands that manufacturers ditch diesel and adopt greener technology such as electrification or hydrogen fuel cells. As a net result, EPA modeling anticipates that between 12–25 percent of large freight trucks will be zero-emission by the next decade. The agency projects that smaller trucks could be around 40 percent zero-emission by that date.
Last week, the Biden administration announced a similar rule, targeting new passenger cars and light trucks. It mandated that those vehicles sold in the U.S. must be electric or hybrids by 2032. Those rules set targets for the number of electric models produced in the U.S. as a percentage of all light-duty vehicles created each year. For instance, in 2030, hitting the EPA’s new targets would require somewhere between 31 percent and 44 percent of new cars, SUVs, and pickup trucks to be fully electric, with the exact percentage depending on the amount of emissions from other vehicles.
Some small business trucker groups said that the Friday rule would inflict a steep burden on their industry.
“We are concerned that the final rule will end up being the most challenging, costly, and potentially disruptive heavy-duty emissions rule in history,” Jed Mandel, president of the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association, told CNN. “All parties need to be better aligned on the realistic timing for delivering the products and infrastructures critical to achieving the successful outcome we all want.”
The EPA claimed that the “one billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions avoided by these standards is equivalent to the emissions from more than 13 million tanker trucks’ worth of gasoline.”
”With this action, the Biden-Harris Administration is continuing to deliver on the most ambitious climate agenda in history while advancing a historic commitment to environmental justice,” it said.
Before President Biden scaled it up nationally, progressive California took action to accelerate the state’s transition to zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. California air regulators voted in April 2023 to ban diesel truck sales by 2036.
The California Air Resources Board unanimously approved a measure that would prohibit the sale of new diesel big rigs by 2036 and force trucks to produce zero emissions by 2042. New commercial trucks, such as garbage trucks, delivery trucks and other medium and heavy-duty vehicles, would need to convert to electric under the rule.