EPA launches new initiative to place tougher restrictions on heavy-duty trucks

November 15th, 2018 by Dakota Software Staff

This month, the EPA announced plans to place tougher restrictions on pollution caused by heavy-duty trucks. Once enacted, the new rules would mark the first time in nearly two decades that the agency has updated its standards governing emissions of nitrogen oxide, or NOx, produced by America's on-highway heavy-duty trucking fleet.

The Cleaner Trucks Initiative was launched last week by Environmental Protection Agency Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler. He was joined by EPA Office of Air and Radiation Assistant Administrator Bill Wehrum, White House officials, state partners and both labor representatives and industry leaders from the trucking and engine manufacturing sector.

"The Cleaner Trucks Initiative will help modernize heavy-duty truck engines, improving their efficiency and providing cleaner air for all Americans," Wheeler said of the CTI in a press release. "The US has made major reductions in NOx emissions, but it's been nearly 20 years since EPA updated these standards. Through rulemaking and a comprehensive review of existing requirements, we will capitalize on these gains and incentivize new technologies to ensure our heavy-duty trucks are clean and remain a competitive method of transportation."

The EPA intends to publish a new standard for NOx emissions by 2020.

The existing NOx standard has not been modified since it was first introduced in 2001, although in 2016, a collection of 20 state and local air regulators petitioned the EPA to update the regulation. At the time, the agency agreed that changes were needed, "particularly in areas of the country with elevated levels of air pollution," and Obama administration officials stated their intent to develop an updated national set of standards with the help of industry and states such as California. This month's CTI announcement also included a promise to partner with industry and states, and has earned the Trump administration rare plaudits from environmental groups.

"We are under no regulatory or court order requirements to launch this initiative," Wheeler clarified when speaking to reporters, according to the Washington Post. "We are doing it because it's good for the environment."

In addition to developing a proposed rule that the EPA intends to publish in 2020, the CTI also aims to streamline compliance and certification requirements. Promising to "cut unnecessary red tape," the agency singled out onboard diagnostic requirements, cost-effective means of reassuring real world compliance by using modern and advanced technologies, the deterioration factor testing process, and concerns regarding annual recertification of engine families as specific areas of deregulatory focus.

Though NOx emissions in the United States have dropped by more than 40 percent in the last ten years, it is still estimated that by the year 2025, heavy-duty trucks will be responsible for one-third of NOx emissions from the transportation sector. The EPA believes that updating standards will go a long way towards reducing that number.