By Lauren Navarro & Pamela MacDougall
California air regulators are currently considering adoption of the Advanced Clean Fleets rule — a purchase requirement for medium and heavy-duty fleets to adopt an increasing percentage of zero-emission trucks. This rule has the potential to be transformative.
By Michael Colvin and Larissa Koehler
Last month California took another significant step forward in advancing the deployment of zero-emission vehicles, with the adoption of a Transportation Electrification Framework by the state’s Public Utilities Commission. The framework establishes a $1 billion, 5-year suite of programs, and it provides a pathway for the state’s large electric utilities to continue to build on what is far and away the most successful deployment of electric vehicles in the country.
This summer, California made national news by adopting a rule that will require all new passenger vehicle sales to be zero emission by 2035. At the same time, the state is also considering a complementary rule to replace medium- and heavy-duty trucks and buses to also be zero emissions. To support this transition, California will need to make a major investment in electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
The California Energy Commission estimates that by 2030 California may need up to 1.2 million EV chargers to support an estimated eight million passenger electric vehicles and an additional 157,000 chargers to support non-passenger vehicles, such as trucks and buses. There are currently over 1.2 million electric passenger vehicles on California’s roads, and significantly fewer chargers than will be needed in 2030. The charging needs of trucks and buses are vastly different from those of private cars — in terms of power demands, locations and access — just to name a few. Unlocking both private and public charging for these vehicles will be a foundational investment to ensure the transition to zero-emission vehicles happens as quickly as possible.
By: Katelyn Roedner Sutter and Michael Colvin
This past summer, Californians have been hit hard by inflation: rising food costs, utility bills and nowhere more obviously than at the gas pump. The cost to fill up a tank has many potential causes and lots of experts are weighing in — see here, here and here. Regardless of the cause, those with the tightest budgets are being hit hardest.
Last week, Gov. Newsom called a special session of the legislature to address high gas prices, and the state began sending direct rebates to Californians to help provide some immediate relief. In the longer term, we need to remember that while sending checks is helpful, the lasting solution to ending this gas price madness is a swift transition to a 100% clean economy.
By Lauren Navarro and Tom Cackette
Update: The California Air Resources Board will hold a workshop on February 13 to discuss proposed changes to the draft Advanced Clean Fleets Regulation language and get feedback from stakeholders. Once the language is finalized, the board will vote on adoption of the ACF rule in the April board meeting. For more information, or to sign up for the workshop click here.
The Advanced Clean Fleets rule is a purchase requirement for medium and heavy-duty fleets to adopt an increasing percentage of zero-emission trucks. It will complement the previously adopted Advanced Clean Trucks regulation requiring manufacturers to sell ZEV trucks. Together the two regulations are the most important means of achieving Gov. Newsom’s executive order requiring 100% of heavy-duty truck fleets in the state to be zero-emission, wherever feasible, by 2045.
We need these rules because heavy-duty trucks currently account for 26% of all smog-forming nitrogen oxide emissions in California and about a third of mobile diesel fine particulate matter emissions. They are also major producers of climate change emissions (about 8%) at a time when our planet cannot take any more climate change. Heavy-duty truck emissions are not evenly distributed — they tend to be concentrated in underserved communities, which are often located near warehouses, distribution centers, ports and major roadways.
By Larissa Koehler and Alice Henderson
This week, the Environmental Protection Agency is hearing from scientists, mothers, healthcare professionals, public health and environmental advocates – including EDF – and many others who submitted comments in support of California clean truck standards.
As EPA works toward finalizing federal heavy-duty emission standards proposed earlier this year, the agency has been accepting public comment on its notices considering Clean Air Act preemption waivers for California clean truck standards, including the Advanced Clean Trucks and Heavy-Duty Omnibus NOx (low-NOx) standards. Several other states have already adopted these standards in recent years to reduce health-harming pollution from new freight trucks and buses. The ACT requires an increasing percentage of new trucks and buses to be zero-emission through 2035, while the low-NOx standards aim to reduce nitrogen oxides from new diesel trucks.
Taken together, these protections will prevent almost 5,000 premature deaths, save California billions of dollars in health care costs and create thousands of new jobs by 2035. But the Truck & Engine Manufacturers Association — a trade group of the nation’s largest engine manufacturers, including Volvo and Daimler — has opposed these safeguards at the state and federal level, and is now challenging in court California’s ability to implement the low-NOx emission standards.