EPA finalizes strongest-ever truck rule to save billions in health & fuel costs
EPA’s Heavy Duty “Phase 3” truck rule has been finalized, and surprisingly enough it comes in stronger (albeit slightly) than the rule that was originally proposed last year.
The final rule has just come out, so there’s plenty to comb through, but the EPA went over some key points in a press call yesterday.
Transportation is the largest-polluting sector in America, and heavy duty vehicles make a disproportionate amount of that pollution. Light duty vehicles still produce the majority – about 60% of transportation emissions are from light-duty vehicles – but heavy duty vehicles are responsible for about a quarter of transportation emissions, despite only being 5% of vehicles.
This underlines the importance of regulating these vehicles, and the outsize gains that we can get from doing so.
New rule saves 1 billion tons CO2 and $13 billion/yr
The main numbers for the finalized rule are that it will save $13 billion per year in annualized net benefits for society, avoid a billion tons worth of greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce air pollution for the 72 million Americans who live within 200 meters of a heavy duty truck route (a group that is disproportionately from disadvantaged communities). The rules cover model years 2027-2032.
The cost and health savings make these rules a rare win-win-win. Businesses save money on costs (approx. $3.5b annually, between $3-10k per vehicle depending on type), health and environmental savings benefit everybody, and the industry gets nudged towards a future that it needs to accept anyway. Or, well… not that rare, considering most positive environmental moves offer these sorts of benefits.
Like the light-duty rules, the heavy-duty rules are “technology neutral,” in that they don’t mandate manufacturers use specific technologies, but rather meet certain pollution guidelines that will require significant improvements in engine technologies used. This means hybrid, plug-in hybrid, battery-electric and fuel cell vehicles are all on the table.
The rule actually got stronger for once
And the most remarkable thing about the rules is that they actually got (very slightly) stronger between the proposed and final rule, due to the 175,000 comments EPA said were left during the comment period.
EPA originally stated that the proposed rule would reduce carbon by 1.8 billion tons, but had to re-do the baseline of these calculations due to California’s strong truck rules, which will reduce overall emissions by a huge chunk (both in California and other states). Now, EPA says that the proposed rule would have reduced carbon by 998 million tons under the revised baseline, or 1 billion tons for the final rule. So, only improved by .2%, but still a tiny improvement, as opposed to going in the other direction.
This is not a common occurrence – we pointed out last week that the opposite happened with light-duty rules, and that this seems to be depressingly common lately. Whenever a new rule comes out, no matter how well-reasoned and attainable, industry lobbies for it to be loosened (and not just in the US, see: Europe, Australia), and usually compromises go their way, not the public’s way.
The changes between the proposed rule and the final one include a softening of the rules from 2027-2030 to give companies more time to arrange charging infrastructure, but also stronger emissions limits in 2031 and 2032 for most vehicle classes. For example, certain medium-heavy vocational vehicles will have 40% stronger limits in 2032 in the final rule as compared to Phase 2 regulation, rather than 35% in the proposed rule.
EPA didn’t break down every change between the proposed and final rule on the press call, because this rule covers so many different classes of vehicle. But overall, this is an improvement compared to the changes in the light duty rules – those only got weaker, whereas these got stronger, just with a little more flexibility in adoption timelines.
Broadly positive reaction to the heavy duty truck rule
Reaction has been broadly positive to the adoption of these phase 3 rules. The American Lung Association celebrated the rules, which along with the EPA’s previous NOx rule brings $22b in health savings per year, and pointed out the rarity of rules getting stronger during the rulemaking process. It also noted that Americans support strong truck regulations by extremely wide margins. Praise also came from the Sierra Club, the Hip Hop Council (who focused on the environmental justice aspect of these rules), and even from industry representatives.
Some industry sources did oppose these rules, or ask for them to be scaled back, such as various oil companies and some truck makers (for example Daimler Trucks and Volvo Trucks, both of which publicly supported the rule but privately called for its delay, despite being leaders in electrified trucks). But several large groups supported them.
In the runup to adoption of the rule, 100+ businesses called for a strong truck standard. This included a newly-formed industry group called the Heavy Duty Leadership Group, which called for rapid approval of a strong EPA rule, and each of its four participants – Ford, Cummins, BorgWarner and Eaton made statements praising the final rule that EPA adopted today. Even military leaders had good things to say about the new rule, through SAFE, an organization that advocates a break from oil from an energy and national security perspective.
How the Biden Administration has helped electrification from every angle
One strength of the rules is how comprehensive they are, especially when considering parallel regulations and incentives created by the administration. Many have pointed to individual EPA rules and stated that they are too narrow, or don’t properly acknowledge the full picture of how electrification would work. But when taken as a whole, the actions done by the EPA and the Biden administration cover almost every conceivable angle of the electrification of transportation.
This rule regulates truck carbon emissions, but another rule regulated smog-forming emissions, and another one regulated railroads, and we still have one coming to increase fleet mpg requirements (building on a change in EV mpg calculations so manufacturers can’t just build a few compliance EVs).
To take care of upfront costs, the Inflation Reduction Act includes commercial credits for both ZEV truck purchases and charger installations (and domestic production provisions and incentives, too). The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law incentivizes chargers further. Ports get specific support from the Clean Ports Program, as do school buses, and the EPA is ensuring that California will remain a testbed for even better environmental rules. The administration also recently released a master infrastructure plan to electrifying all the US’ freight routes by 2040.
So… that takes care of just about everything, right?
Electrek’s Take
As we always say, we’d never mind stronger rules than those that get implemented. We need to electrify transportation, and soon, and we simply aren’t doing enough to fight climate change.
But despite my constant “why not sooner?” headlines, I have been particularly impressed by recent truck regulations in this country (both California’s and this new EPA rule). I also think the EPA’s light-duty rule is exceedingly well-reasoned and works towards fixing some huge problems (like vehicle size), though the original proposal was better.
And that’s the most impressive part about this rule. I lamented in the Take for the light-duty rule that regulations seem to always get compromised in favor of polluters, never in favor of the public interest. But this time, that didn’t happen – it’s a compromise, and the polluters did get a little bit of what they wanted, but the public also got even better final regulations than we originally were going to get, and it balanced out to a very slightly better rule in the end.
Like the Lung Association said (understatedly): “this does not always happen.” And yet, today, it did.
We can all be glad for that – and the 72 million Americans who live within 200 meters of a truck route, especially, will get to breathe a lot more cleanly in the coming years.
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Global renewable developer and energy giant RWE has halted its US offshore wind operations “for the time being” because of the “political environment” the Trump administration has created.
RWE, Germany’s biggest electricity producer, said in March that it had dialed back its US offshore wind activities. But now, CEO Marcus Krebber said in a speech transcript, which he’ll deliver at the company’s Annual General Meeting in Essen on April 30, that its US offshore wind business is now closed (but it wasn’t all bad news):
In the US, where we have stopped our offshore activities for the time being, our business in onshore wind, solar energy, and battery storage has so far been developing very dynamically. At the start of this year, we reached an important milestone when our US generation capacity hit the 10 gigawatt mark. The construction of a further 4 gigawatts is secured.
He went on to say that renewables have created regional value and jobs, but that the company remains “cautious given the political developments.” RWE has introduced more stringent requirements for future US investments:
All necessary federal permits must be in place. Tax credits must be safe harbored and all relevant tariff risks mitigated. In addition, onshore wind and solar projects must have secured offtake at the time of the investment decision. Only if these conditions are met will further investments be possible, given the political environment.
About half of RWE’s installed renewable capacity is in the US, where it’s the third-largest renewable energy company through its subsidiary, RWE Clean Energy. RWE holds the rights to develop US offshore wind projects in New York, Louisiana, and California.
RWE paid $1.1 billion for the New York lease area in 2022, where it’s meant to develop the 3 gigawatt (GW) Community Offshore Wind with the UK’s National Grid. Community Offshore Wind was projected to come online in the early 2030s and expected to power more than a million homes.
The developer paid $5.6 billion for the Louisiana lease in the Gulf of Mexico in 2023 as the lone bidder for development rights, and the Canopy Offshore Wind project off Northern California was not expected to be completed for another decade.
Read more: Trump admin halts $5 billion NY offshore wind project mid-build
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It’s that time of year again, time for events across the country to show off electric vehicles at Drive Electric Earth Month.
Drive Electric Earth Month is an offshoot of Drive Electric Week, a long-running annual tradition hosting meetups mostly in the US, but also occasionally in other countries. It started as Drive Electric Earth Day, but since not every event can happen on the same day, they went ahead and extended it to encompass “Earth Month” events that happen across the month of April. It’s all organized by Plug In America, the Sierra Club, the Electric Vehicle Association, EV Hybrid Noire, and Drive Electric USA.
Events consist of general Earth Day-style community celebrations, EV Ride & Drives where you can test drive several EVs in one place, and opportunities to talk to EV owners and ask them questions about what it’s like to live with an EV, away from the pressure of a dealership.
This month, there are 158 events registered across the US and 1 in Mexico (including one online webinar about things to consider when purchasing an EV).
Events have been happening all month, but the biggest weekend is this upcoming one, APril 26-27.
One really neat event was the Asheville event, which showcased the resiliency of EVs in an area devastated by Hurricane Helene, which was made more severe by climate change. That event was attended by the Rivian R1T which famously got dragged 100 feet submerged in mud and came out running fine.
But the bulk of the events happened on the weekends surrounding Earth Day, April 22, so there were several last weekend and will be even more this upcoming weekend.
There are plenty of events in the big cities where you’d expect, but Plug In America wanted to highlight a few of the events in smaller places around the country. Here’s a sampling of upcoming events:
- Big Island EV – Cruise and Picnic in Waimea, HI on April 26, 10am-1pm – EV drivers will congregate in various places around the Big Island (Kona, Waimea, Waikoloa and Hilo), then drive up Saddle Road to the Gil Kahele Recreation Area on Mauna Kea for a potluck and a chance to talk about the experience of owning EVs on the Big Island.
- Santa Barbara Earth Day 2025 and Green Car Show in Santa Barbara, CA on April 26-27, 11am-8pm – This is part of Santa Barbara’s Earth Day celebration, which routinely attracts 30,000 participants and is one of the longest-running Earth Day celebrations on the planet. The Green Car Show includes ride & drives and an “Owners Corner” where owners can showcase their EVs and attendees can check them out and ask questions.
- Earth Day’25 – EV’s role in a sustainable future in Queretaro City, Mexico on April 26, 9am-4pm – The sole Mexican event, this is a combined in-person/online seminar at the Querétaro Institute of Technology.
- Norman Earth Day Festival in Norman, OK on April 27, 12-5pm – Another municipal Earth Day festival, with hands-on activities for kids to learn about the environment. A portion of the parking lot reserved for an EV car show for EV owners who pre-register to show off their vehicles.
- Oregon Electric Vehicle Association Test Drive & Information Expo in Portland, OR on April 27, 10am-4pm – This one is at Daimler Truck’s North American HQ, and will have several EVs for test drives, owner displays (including DIY gas-to-EV conversions), and keynote presentations by EV experts. They’ll even have a 1914 Detroit Electric EV available for test rides!
- And, we at Electrek want to give a shoutout to Rove’s EV Drive Days in Santa Ana 10am-3pm April 28 – ROVE is the company behind the “full-service” EV charging concept that we’ve talked about several times here on Electrek, and we like what they’re doing for EV charging. They’ve hosted a few community events, and this is their contribution to Earth Month.
Each event has a different assortment of activities (e.g. test drives won’t be available at every event, generally just the larger ones attended by local dealerships), so be sure to check the events page to see what the plan is for your local event.
These events have offered a great way to connect with owners and see the newest electric vehicle tech, and even get a chance to do test rides and drives in person. Attendees got to hear unfiltered information from actual owners about the benefits and trials of owning EVs, allowing for longer and more genuine (and often more knowledgeable) conversations than one might normally encounter at a dealership.
And if you’re an owner – you can show off your car and answer those questions for interested onlookers.
To view all the events and see what’s happening in your area, you can check out the list of events or the events map. You can also sign up to volunteer at your local events, and if you plan to show off your electric car, you can RSVP on each event page and list the vehicle that you plan to show (or see what other vehicles have already registered).
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