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“It’s a very different political environment for trucking,” Lydia Vieth said. (Bilanol/Getty Images)

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The Environmental Protection Agency is reconsidering regulations including its Greenhouse Gas Phase 3 rule and has asked Congress to review waivers it has granted to California allowing that state to set its own emission standards. Now, the trucking industry is waiting to see what happens next.

EPA said in a release March 12 that it would undertake 31 actions that include reconsidering the GHG3 rule as well as the agency’s 2009 endangerment finding that determined that certain emissions harm public health. That rule underpinned other agency emission regulations.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a video that the action was “the largest deregulatory announcement in U.S. history.”

In remarks provided to Transport Topics, Mike Tunnell, American Trucking Associations’ senior director of energy and environmental affairs, said former President Joe Biden’s administration set “unrealistic [electric vehicle] mandates on impossible timelines.” He expects a more balanced approach during the Trump administration.

“Members of the trucking industry were deeply concerned that GHG3 threatened to reduce equipment availability, increase costs for businesses and consumers, and cause major supply chain disruptions,” Tunnell said. “The Trump administration’s decision to reconsider GHG3 has unleashed a wave of optimism that EPA Administrator Zeldin will set realistic standards with achievable targets and timelines.”

Tunnell said the administration’s decision will prevent disruptions to the supply chain and provide relief to truckers.

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Zeldin said that the action was “the largest deregulatory announcement in U.S. history.” (Samuel Corum/Bloomberg)

While GHG3 doesn’t require fleets to purchase zero-emission vehicles, it does mandate a steady increase in that assumes ZEV adoption. The rule assumes that by model year 2032, 25% of sales of Class 8 sleepers will be ZEVs although there are no ­sleeper ZEVs currently in the market.

ACT Research President Kenny Vieth said his firm always believed EPA overreached with GHG3 and would have had to rewrite the regulation. In fact, he believes the regulation would have been changed even if former Vice President Kamala Harris had won the election. In his opinion, she would not have directed EPA to rewrite it, so opponents would have relied on the courts. However, with President Donald Trump, the industry will get relief directly from EPA.

“This was an extremely problematic regulation. … While aspiration is good, you had to have a dose of reality when you’re pushing the ball forward, and I think this is a case where the regulators just got way too far out in front of capabilities,” he said.

It’s safe to assume the new GHG standards will represent a significant change and be much less stringent than the current ones, said Lydia Vieth, a research analyst with ACT Research who focuses on electrification and autonomy. There could be no greenhouse gas regulations, although ACT Research expects some rule to emerge.

New standards won’t have a ZEV mandate or an assumed rate of adoption. They might require the industry to squeeze more efficiency out of diesel engines or incorporate natural gas.

“It’s a very different political environment for trucking,” she said.

What will the new rule be? ­Kenny Vieth said that so far, it’s a mystery, but whatever it is, it’s probably not going to start in 2027.

“Minimally, I think it’s going to be pushed out, and then as far as the EPA’s targets for zero-­emission vehicles, I’m not sure how that changes with the new administration changing the regulation,” he said.

Kenny Vieth said the trucking industry has been more focused on EPA’s Clean Trucks Plan regulation than it has on GHG3. The final rule signed in 2022 focuses on reducing nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions beginning in model year 2027. It was supposed to take effect Jan. 1, 2027, with technology changes to lower NOx and a warranty extension. ACT believes the technology changes will stay in place, but the warranty extension probably will be cut.

A middle path could be found in which the standards are kept but other aspects are relaxed to reduce truck buyers’ costs while letting manufacturers sell the products they have been developing, Lydia Vieth said. She noted that companies have invested a lot of time and money to create compliant engines; the Clean Trucks Plan is in the fifth year of a seven-year planning cycle.

Staying Fluid

Cummins is proceeding with its efforts to comply with the current regulatory regime while keeping in mind different scenarios, said David King, the company’s product manager in charge of on-road natural gas and hydrogen engines for North America. Customers want high-­efficiency, clean engines with improved fuel economy. Cummins doesn’t expect big changes in the market until the regulation changes.

“I think right now there’s a lot of head scratching going on and confusion as to what’s going to happen from all the environmental regulatory discussion that you see in the news,” he said, “But I think everybody has to make decisions, and they have to make decisions today, and they really have to make those decisions based on everything you know at the moment of what’s true. And so what’s on record is what we have to all plan for until we know something different.”

Changes are occurring at the state level in addition to the federal one. Zeldin announced Feb. 14 that EPA will be asking Congress to review the agency’s waivers that have allowed the California Air Resources Board to set the state’s own emission rules. One of those waivers allowed CARB to enact its Advanced Clean Trucks regulation, which requires manufacturers to sell zero-emission vehicles as a gradually increasing percentage of their annual California model year sales. EPA also wants Congress to review CARB’s Heavy-Duty Omnibus Regulation requiring manufacturers to reduce NOX emissions by 75% and particulate matter by 50% for engine model years 2024-26 compared with current EPA standards.

In his announcement, Zeldin said the Biden administration had failed to consult Congress on waivers that would have national effects.

ATA President Chris Spear said the proposed change would reduce California’s ability to enact what can become de facto national standards.

“This is not the United States of California. California should ­never be given the keys to set national policy and regulate America’s supply chain,” he said in a statement.

Lydia Vieth said waiver decisions previously have not been sent to Congress for review because they have not been considered to be rules. The General Accounting Office and the Senate parliamentarian likewise have said the rules are not subject to congressional review. But Congress has introduced joint resolutions of disapproval for both. The dispute could play out in court.

The news came after CARB on Jan. 14 withdrew its request for a waiver for its Advanced Clean Fleets rule, which would have mandated a phased-in deployment of ZEVs in certain truck and bus fleet operations. Lydia Vieth said the withdrawal is an acknowledgment of the political realities associated with the change in administrations.

The Advanced Clean Trucks regulation along with the Heavy-Duty Omnibus Regulation could remain in force because of the Clean Truck Partnership, in which CARB agreed to align its 2027 NOx standards with EPA’s while the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association and other truck manufacturers agreed to follow the state’s Advanced Clean Trucks and Heavy-Duty Omnibus rules regardless of successful challenges. Compliance would not be required in other states.

“We still think that at the end of the day, Advanced Clean Truck and Heavy-Duty Omnibus waivers will stick around,” Lydia Vieth said. “Now, that doesn’t mean that in the meantime, we won’t see chaos and delay because of legal proceedings.”

Next Steps

The Trump administration’s regulatory changes are occurring much faster than typical regulatory regimes, she said. The previous Trump administration tried to end the CARB waivers later in his term and didn’t succeed before Biden took office.

“We’ve got the most anti-regulatory administration, at least in my lifetime once again at the helm of the country, and they seem better prepared to do what they want to do, this administration, than their previous go-around,” Kenny Vieth said.

Meanwhile, congressional Republicans also are seeking to roll back Biden-era regulations. Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) earlier this year introduced the Transportation Freedom Act, which would repeal GHG3 and would require California and all other states to follow federal standards.

ATA’s Tunnell said ZEVs might have a future role to play in the right circumstances such as shorthaul applications, but other solutions also will be needed. Realistic benchmarks and greater regulatory certainty probably would generate more interest in those other options.

Cummins’ King said whatever regulations emerge should con­sider all the carbon produced “well to wheel” so the various technologies will have a level playing field. Current regulations lean toward electric vehicles because regulators only consider emissions produced by the truck without considering emissions caused at other stages. Renewable natural gas extracted from landfills and dairy farms can be an especially environmentally friendly choice, he said. Dairy-produced natural gas, in fact, can reduce more greenhouse gas emissions than it produces, helping carriers offset carbon produced elsewhere in the fleet.

King said customers are showing a renewed interest in natural gas. Many fleets have carbon-reduction plans or have shipper customers who want to reduce emissions. Unlike infant technologies, natural gas can be implemented today at scale. It also can help fleets save money over diesel.

“You can look at it either way,” he said. “It’s an economic win that has an environmental benefit with it, or it’s an environmental win with an economic benefit. When both of those come together, now we’re talking about a sustainable solution.”