Trucking interests' participation in the Environmental Protection Agency's marathon public hearing, conducted online Wednesday, August 14, was slim compared to large numbers of physicians, environmental groups, community groups and others inveighing against the dangers of diesel exhaust and in full-throated support of the California Air Resources Board's Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) rule finally getting the go-ahead.
To be implemented the ACF needs a Clean Air Act waiver from the EPA. It's the companion rule CARB promulgated alongside the Advanced Clean Trucks rule, which sets sales requirements for so-called "zero emissions" (ZEV) trucks within the state, requiring an escalating percentage of trucks sold there to be ZEVs. While the ACT "helps ensure that zero‑emissions vehicles (ZEV) are available for sale," according to CARB, it's the ACF that in effect makes the market for them, seeking to ensure that companies actually buy them by requiring it of some.
The ACF is the rule that, if implemented as originally proposed, would have required any new truck being registered to operate in a California port be a ZEV as of the beginning of this year. It's the ACF that also attempts to set a hard deadline on the manufacture and sale of diesel medium- and heavy-duty trucks in the state, eliminating diesels' sale there by 2036, just a dozen years from now.
The Wednesday hearing is accompanied by a public comment period that is open through at least September 16 for written testimony.
[Related: With CARB ZEV deadline looming, port dray haulers turn to battery electric trucks]
Outside of dray operations, the ACF aims its ZEV requirements principally at relatively larger trucking businesses, those in its "high priority" category with 50 or more trucks. Matt Schrap, CEO of the Harbor Trucking Association, remarked on the dearth of small trucking businesses among his association's dray-haul membership in the hearing, noting "they're out working ... putting food on the table for their families."
Though there were some fleets commenting. Jorge Banuelos of KKW Trucking, logistics analyst for the partly dray operation headquartered in Pomona, California, noted the quick push for battery-electric technology for Class 8s felt "a little farfetched at the moment," citing charging-infrastructure limitations. "We may not be ready for this as an industry yet."
Schrap also called out the unworkable nature of the rule given support-infrastructure challenges, and put the situation in more stark terms, calling the ACF "ill-conceived and shortsighted. ... We're very concerned about how this rule will be implemented," he said, "because it has real-world impacts not only on businesses but on the consumer" in the form of higher prices as increased equipment costs are passed on.
Schrap noted a need for an equivalent of 500 new heavy-duty-capable chargers a week to fully convert the existing diesel fleet to battery electric under the ACF's aggressive timeline. "EPA has an opportunity to set the tone," Schrap added, and "send CARB back to the drawing board" given "serious red flags about the ability of the state to actually meet" the goals set out in the ACF.
[Related: OOIDA, oil industry join spate of lawsuits against EPA over Phase 3 regs]
Dray-haul owner-operator Joseph Piros agreed with other trucking interests testifying in the hearing that the rule's timeline was too ambitious, "not taking into account the technology to make the transition," and its associated high costs, he said. "I’m in the market for a new truck, but I can’t afford a half-million-dollar" Class 8 ZEV. Even with support in the form of grants and credits, such equipment is "out of reach for the standard owner-operator," he added.
He said he was on the verge of "taking a chance purchasing a diesel truck in a couple of weeks" -- it's a chance because if the ACF comes into play and drayage-truck registry rules are retroactive to their original January 1 deadline, he might not be able to register that truck to do his customary port work.
"If you advance this ruling," he said, "I could be out of business."
One smaller-fleet success story in battery-electric adoption came by way of Adam Browning, executive vice president for policy with Forum Mobility. He referenced Hight Logistics' work with the company to lease several electric trucks for its Southern California dray operations, under a kind of full-service model where electric power, maintenance, and more is included in a subscription fee paid monthly per truck. Hight, Browning said, has gone from "four trucks to 20 trucks" since Overdrive wrote about owner Rudy Diaz (Diaz was at five trucks then), with "strong interest from shippers for zero emissions solutions."
Added trucks in the fleet include a mix of electric units working with Forum and others Diaz bought, Browning said.
Despite such success without the ACF in place, Browning urged EPA to grant the waiver to CARB to implement the rule because "right now the market is frozen by a lack of policy certainty," he felt. Forum wants to build charging depots and give access to subscribing fleets, yet "we can’t build until we have sites pre-reserved. We can’t break ground until the customers show up. Right now, most fleets are on the sidelines -- we need regulatory certainty to break that."
[Related: Electric trucks don't stand a chance, even in drayage, without more power infrastructure]
Representing the American Trucking Associations during the hearing was Mike Tunnell, director for environmental affairs, who cited the 40-year trucking/EPA collaboration that's resulted in a starkly improved emissions reality: "Sixty trucks today emit what one truck emitted in 1988," he said. Yet Tunnell believed that CARB had not met critical components of what's required for the state to receive a waiver, not taking into account the "state of technology and the ability of fleets to comply with the regulatory requirements" of the ACF.
Jay Grimes, director of federal affairs for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, spoke to similar concerns, noting "OOIDA members have raised questions about ACF’s mandate that all new California medium- and heavy-duty trucks must be" ZEVs by 2036. "We are also concerned that future CARB regulations will implement aspects of ACF for small carriers and all other commercial vehicles currently outside ACF’s scope. This would establish another set of unworkable and unaffordable emissions rules for California’s small businesses."
Grimes called the ACF "an example of a rushed environmental rule that does not account for manufacturing lead time, practical vehicle market conditions, and, in this case, operational feasibility."
According to ATA's Mike Tunnell, EPA's evaluation, in the end, he felt, "will find that the compliance requirements aren't feasible in light of the timelines and costs." High costs, and the timeline for infrastructure development, "will force fleets to rely on compliance extensions" if the rule was to go into effect, "limiting the deployment of ZEV trucks," Tunnell said. "Projected emissions reductions will fall far short. EPA must reject CARB’s waiver request."
CARB's ACF regulation has taken fire from trucking and other groups with a number of legal challenges, including from the California Trucking Association, Western States Trucking Association, the American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce, and a coalition of 17 states and the Nebraska Trucking Association.
