OPINION:
Last week, two signatures from President Trump marked the end of the road for the ruinous regulations conceived by unelected, overzealous California bureaucrats that would have upended our supply chain and devastated the American economy.
They also marked the beginning of another road that leads toward commonsense, achievable national emissions standards that will allow trucks to continue delivering for our nation.
The winding journey that brought us to this monumental win began in 2021, when the California Air Resources Board adopted two wildly unrealistic mandates: the Advanced Clean Trucks regulation requiring medium- and heavy-duty truck manufacturers to sell impractical, increasing percentages of zero-emission vehicles through 2035, and the Heavy-Duty Low NOx Omnibus rule, imposing stringent, costly emissions standards on new truck sales. In the four years that followed, the Biden administration handed over the regulatory keys to California, granting it a pair of destructive Environmental Protection Agency waivers allowing other states to copy its pursuit of reckless regulatory dominance.
Both mandates were untethered from reality. The regulations failed to account for the lack of nationwide charging infrastructure, the still-developing technology for zero-emissions heavy-duty trucks and the devastating financial burden that would have cascaded through the entire supply chain, affecting food prices, consumer goods and vital health care products.
Had these mandates been allowed to remain in effect, grocery store shelves would be empty. Hospitals would be short of lifesaving equipment. Your local gas station would be out of fuel. It wouldn’t just be a matter of inconvenience; it would be a full-blown crisis.
Let’s be clear: The trucking industry supports reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, many companies across the logistics sector are actively investing in cleaner technologies and exploring hybrid systems, low-emission fuels and electrification where possible.
Trucks today produce 99% less nitrogen oxide and particulate matter emissions than those on the road decades ago. New trucks cut carbon emissions by more than 40% compared with a truck manufactured in 2010. As a result, 60 of today’s trucks emit what just one truck did in 1988.
Still, the idea that an industry already operating on razor-thin margins can pivot to unproven battery-electric trucks in the near term isn’t just unrealistic; it’s impossible. Even states that adopted California’s standards have acknowledged reality by scaling back and delaying their implementation.
In 15 minutes, you can fuel a diesel truck and go 1,200 miles. An electric truck can do the same in the fantasyland where California bureaucrats live. Back here on Earth, it takes six hours to charge an electric truck that, at best, can get you 200 miles on a single charge. Good luck finding a charging station anywhere from Nevada to South Dakota.
That’s how we arrived at Thursday’s ceremony at the White House, where truckers stood shoulder to shoulder, literally and figuratively, with Mr. Trump as he signed the congressional resolutions repealing California’s damaging regulations and the Golden State’s attempts to set de facto national vehicle policies. It also restored regulatory power where it should be: with the Environmental Protection Agency.
By championing this repeal, the Trump administration and congressional leadership reaffirmed their unwavering support for the working men and women behind the wheel. They also sent a clear message: This is not the United States of California.
They recognized that a one-size-fits-all approach dictated by a single state doesn’t serve the needs of the entire country. California’s EV mandates may have been rooted in good intentions, but intentions alone don’t move freight. Trucks do.
To deliver for American families and businesses, we need realistic and achievable national emissions standards that go hand in hand with maintaining economic stability.
We stand ready to work with federal regulators to ensure those standards are met and maintained. For four decades, we have proved that we are committed to continuously reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from our fleets. We don’t need cubicle-dwelling bureaucrats telling us how to do it.
No one knows the nation’s roads better than we do. We also know that without a viable road map to electrification and emissions reduction requirements, any half-baked efforts championed by a single state will create more problems than they will solve.
Until the technology and infrastructure catch up with our ambitions, we need policies that reflect the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.
• Chris Spear is president and CEO of the American Trucking Associations.
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