The Environmental Protection Agency finalized a regulation on Friday curbing emissions from heavy-duty vehicles, part of overall tailpipe rules the Biden administration is touting as its most aggressive effort yet to boost electric vehicles while combating emissions that contribute to global warming.
The finalized rule would enact stronger tailpipe emission standards for vehicles, such as freight trucks and buses, that are created between 2027 and 2032. However, the regulation differs from its initial proposal in that it would provide flexibility for manufacturers to meet the standards in the early years of the program, as vehicle technologies and charging infrastructure develop. The regulation has been paired with another tailpipe emissions standard regulating light-duty vehicles, such as passenger cars, that was finalized last week.
The transportation sector is the largest source of greenhouse gases, contributing 28% of the United States’s total emissions. Heavy-duty vehicles, specifically, account for 23% of the sector, the second largest greenhouse gas emitter, right behind light-duty vehicles.
“In finalizing these emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles like trucks and buses, EPA is significantly cutting pollution from the hardest-working vehicles on the road,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a written statement. “Building on our recently finalized rule for light- and medium-duty vehicles, EPA’s strong and durable vehicle standards respond to the urgency of the climate crisis by making deep cuts in emissions from the transportation sector.”
According to modeling from the EPA, the standards are expected to avoid 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions, the equivalent of the emissions from more than 13 million tanker trucks’ worth of gasoline. The new rule is also expected to provide $13 billion in annualized net benefits relating to public health, climate, and savings for truck owners and operators, according to the EPA.
However, these estimates run lower than the projected benefits estimated in the EPA’s initial proposal, which predicted the standards would reduce vehicle emissions by 1.8 billion metric tons from 2027 to 2055, with estimated net benefits ranging between $180 billion and $320 billion. Officials on a press call with reporters said the agency recalculated the baseline of emissions reductions to account for a separate California program meant to reduce tailpipe emissions.
The EPA is also touting the new standards as being “technology neutral” and performance-based, stating that the rule allows for manufacturers to choose technologies based on what is best suited for operators and consumers. The available technology includes advanced internal combustion engine vehicles, hybrids, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, battery electric vehicles, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The new standards are expected to apply to heavy-duty vocational vehicles, such as delivery trucks and buses, along with tractors.
The agency also finalized regulations last week that would impose auto tailpipe emission requirements through 2029 for light- and medium-duty vehicles such as passenger cars, beginning in 2027. The two proposals are the final pieces of the agency’s “Clean Trucks Plan” and complement other regulations tamping down on transportation sector emissions.
Energy and transportation trade group SAFE praised the finalized rule, stating that the regulation would “underpin a massive shift away from oil dependence for America’s transportation system” — arguing that the U.S. would need to diversify from relying on oil abroad due to geopolitical conflicts that have increased prices, such as the Russia-Ukraine war.
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“We applaud these rules in the context of our continued vulnerability to oil price volatility and its impact on our strategic interests,” Gen. Charles F. Wald, a member of SAFE’s Energy Security Leadership Council and former deputy commander of U.S. European Command, said in a written statement.
However, the Biden administration has been facing pushback from automakers on their EV targets, with many arguing that the administration’s sales targets are impossible to reach in the intended time frame and would increase prices for consumers.
“Given the wide range of operations required of our industry to keep the economy running, a successful emission regulation must be technology neutral and cannot be one-size-fits-all,” American Trucking Association President and CEO Chris Spear said in a statement. “Any regulation that fails to account for the operational realities of trucking will set the industry and America’s supply chain up for failure.”
Republicans in Congress are expected to introduce a disapproval resolution that would overturn Friday’s proposed regulation and have already introduced one to challenge the light-duty vehicle regulation.
