California Drops Some Trucking Rules

Just days before the Inauguration of President Trump, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) withdrew its waiver requests to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the state’s Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) rule and Transport Refrigeration Units (TRUs, “reefers”). If you operate in California, you can heave a sigh of relief – at least temporarily – because CARB’s unrealistic compliance deadlines are no longer in effect.

CARB cited the incoming Trump administration’s opposition to the mandates as the reason for abandoning those requests. As ICSA has reported, under federal law the state of California sought emission standards which differ from EPA’s nationwide policies. For information on provisions in the California Clean Truck Check program that may be enforced without a waiver, read below for an updated overview of California’s truck pollution rules.

CARB’s waiver withdrawals follow a recent EPA decision that partially granted California’s low-emission rules for TRUs while denying mandatory transition to zero emissions TRUs over the next seven years. CARB has also withdrawn pending waiver requests for zero-emission programs for commercial harbor watercraft and railroad locomotives. The CARB request for a transition to zero-emission passenger cars was granted by EPA earlier this year.

As CARB anticipated, among the executive orders signed by President Trump beginning January 20, 2025, were:

• Moratorium on all federal regulatory activity until new administration personnel are in place
• Elimination of the federal “electric vehicle” (EV) mandate
• Freezing of federal subsidies for EV purchases and funding for the installation of charging stations.

While these executive orders only specifically address zero-emission passenger cars and light trucks, an EPA administrator under Trump’s watch would likely approach zero-emission heavy-duty trucks in the same manner. Again, the CARB ACF waiver request was withdrawn, so nothing is pending before the EPA.

The CARB ACF rule was strongly opposed by the trucking industry as technologically infeasible and extraordinarily expensive, a position that both CARB and EPA basically ignored up until the election in November. While battery-operated zero-emission (ZEV) trucks potentially fit some local and short-haul operations, where trucks could return to an overnight charging station, for longer haul and heavier trucks unsolved issues include:

• Lack of interstate charging infrastructure
• Electric vehicles’ demonstrated short operating range
• Weight of the batteries which would reduce cargo capacity
• Very high cost of ZEVs

Attention now turns to the states which have pledged to follow California’s lead, as well as the 23 states which joined the Nebraska Attorney General in an antitrust lawsuit against truck manufacturers who had agreed to support CARB’s zero-emission truck rule, regardless of whether it was determined to legally apply outside California.