In a letter to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, the American Trucking Association (ATA) said the agency should re-evaluate its heavy-duty NOx emissions standard to avoid operational challenges for the trucking industry.
“ATA appreciates the commonsense approach to environmental regulation that the EPA is taking under [Administrator Zeldin’s] leadership,” ATA President and CEO Chris Spear wrote in the Feb. 17 letter. “EPA’s commitment to engage industry stakeholders and reevaluate existing regulations will help to ensure environmental protections are appropriately balanced with the need to sustain economic growth and industry competitiveness.”
Starting with the 2027 model year, heavy-duty engines and vehicles will adhere to new air pollution standards that will require a premature rollout of commercial motor vehicles with unproven engine technologies, the association said. The change could disrupt freight transportation, ATA said. Lack of compliant prototype engines and pre-production models has impeded fleets’ ability to prepare maintenance and training plans or to assess possible reliability issues. Additionally, the rush implementation timeline is likely to spur a pre-buy that would drive-up costs for equipment, the association said.
ATA is recommending that the EPA grant non-conformance penalties to heavy-duty manufacturers to give them additional time to run real-world testing on the new emission control systems, and for the agency to consider expanding credit life, credit trading and credit use across different vehicle classes that would allow manufacturers to remain in compliance while supplying proven technologies to the new truck market.
“We remain concerned that the heavy-duty NOx rule imposes significant burdens at a time when the trucking industry continues to contend with a prolonged freight recession and inflationary pressures,” Spear wrote. “ATA requests that EPA consider improvements that would reduce cost and complexity and ensure that any new technology that trucking is forced to adopt is reliable.”