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Spencer Platt

Rayan Makarem worries about the air that his 2-year-old daughter breathes. More than 100 diesel-powered trucks rumble through their neighborhood every half an hour, spewing harmful pollutants linked to asthma and other health conditions.

The pollution in their community — and others like it nationwide — will be curbed under a climate change rule the Environmental Protection Agency finalized Friday. The rule will require manufacturers to slash emissions of greenhouse gases from new trucks, delivery vans and buses. Those limits, in turn, will reduce deadly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/02/07/epa-soot-limit-rule/" target="_blank">particulate matter</a> and lung-damaging nitrogen dioxide from such vehicles.

“Now that I have a 2-year-old kid, we actually try to avoid playing outside when there is bad air,” said Makarem, who lives in Kansas City, Kan., and is a spokesman for the Moving Forward Network, a group that advocates for reducing pollution in disadvantaged communities. “Hopefully, this is a step in the right direction.”

The EPA rule follows <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/03/20/biden-car-emissions-rules/" target=_blank>strict emissions limits for gas-powered cars</a> aimed at accelerating the nation’s halting transition to electric vehicles. It marks the first time in more than two decades that the federal government has cracked down on pollution from diesel trucks.

The rule doesn’t go as far as Makarem and other environmental justice advocates would like. The Moving Forward Network had urged the EPA to require all new trucks to be zero-emission by 2035.

Yet EPA officials said the rule will not mandate the adoption of a particular zero-emission technology. Rather, it will require manufacturers to reduce emissions by choosing from several cleaner technologies, including electric trucks, hybrid trucks and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.

Still, the rule stands to benefit poor, Black and Latino communities that are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/04/28/environmental-justice-pollution/" target=_blank>disproportionately exposed</a> to diesel exhaust from highways, ports and sprawling distribution centers. These communities suffer higher rates of asthma, heart disease and premature deaths from air pollution.

“An estimated 72 million Americans, often people of color or people with lower incomes, live near freight truck routes,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said on a call with reporters. “Reducing emissions from our heavy-duty vehicles means cleaner air and less pollution. It means safer and more vibrant communities,” he added.

One change from the proposed rule released last year: The final rule will not require truck manufacturers to dramatically ramp up the production of cleaner vehicles until after 2030. That represents a slower timeline than <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2023/07/06/diesel-trucks-california-air-pollution/" target=_blank>California’s truck pollution regulation</a>, which mandates steep increases starting this year.

But the final rule will still achieve greater emissions reductions than the original proposal, according to the EPA. It will avoid 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases — equivalent to the emissions from more than 13 million tanker trucks’ worth of gasoline, the agency said.

The regulation could face legal challenges from the truck industry, which <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/18/electric-truck-transition/" target=_blank>has pushed to delay</a> the nation’s shift away from fossil fuels.

Publicly, truck makers say they are committed to cutting emissions. Volvo plans to be “fossil-free” by 2040, while Daimler Truck has set a goal of selling only carbon-neutral trucks and buses in the United States, Europe and Japan by 2039.

But behind the scenes, the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association, which represents the nation’s largest truck makers, lobbied to weaken the EPA proposal. The industry has also led a campaign against California’s <a href="https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/advanced-clean-trucks" target=_blank>Advanced Clean Trucks Regulation</a>, which 10 other states have adopted.

The association’s president, Jed Mandel, voiced concern Friday that the final rule “will end up being the most challenging, costly and potentially disruptive heavy-duty emissions rule in history.”

But not all truck makers are opposing the standards.

Cummins, a maker of diesel engines, said in a statement that while the policy is “ambitious,” the industry “needs nationwide regulatory certainty to successfully move toward a decarbonized future.” Jonathan Miller, senior vice president of public affairs for Volvo Group North America, said in a statement that the company is “completely aligned with EPA’s objective of speeding the transition to zero-emission vehicles.”

Electric trucks are still a rarity on the nation’s roads. Out of 12.2 million trucks in the United States, nearly 13,000 are electric, according to an <a href="https://blogs.edf.org/energyexchange/2023/12/13/electric-truck-deployments-by-u-s-companies-grew-five-times-in-2023/" target=_blank>analysis</a> by the Environmental Defense Fund.

Mike Nichols, a truck driver in Chippewa Falls, Wis., said he worries that frigid temperatures will sap the batteries of electric trucks. “Batteries don’t work well in cold weather, and that’s just the laws of physics,” Nichols said.

But other truckers say they love driving electric, praising the vehicles’ handling, acceleration, smoothness and quietness.

“Diesel was like a college wrestler,” Marty Boots, a 66-year-old trucker in South El Monte, Calif., <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2024/01/18/electric-truck-drivers-vehicles/" target=_blank>previously told The Washington Post</a>. “And the electric is like a ballet dancer.”

Jamie Kelter Davis

In an effort to preempt the EPA rule, an industry group last week released a <a href="https://www.cleanfreightcoalition.org/new-report-pegs-cost-electrifying-us-commercial-truck-fleet-1-trillion" target="_blank">report</a> that claimed the shift to electric trucks could have astronomical costs. The study by the Clean Freight Coalition, whose members include the American Trucking Associations, concludes that charging stations for a nationwide fleet of 100 percent electric trucks will cost at least $620 billion by 2040.

“The members of the Clean Freight Coalition are all-in on improving the environment and getting to zero-emission trucks,” said Jim Mullen, chief strategy officer of the National Motor Freight Traffic Association, a study sponsor. “The purpose of the study was not to alarm anybody. It was to put a dose of reality into the discussion.”

However, environmentalists accused the industry of using flawed methodology and engaging in fearmongering.

“Every assumption the study makes is the assumption that would result in the highest costs,” said Dave Cooke, senior vehicles analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “It’s an absurd analysis that is specifically designed to generate a big number.”

Jacqueline Gelb, vice president of energy and environmental affairs at the American Trucking Associations, defended the report’s methodology and findings. She noted that the study didn’t include the expense of the electric trucks themselves.

An electric big rig can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, or two to three times more than a diesel truck. But over time, electric trucks are much cheaper to operate because of higher energy efficiency and lower maintenance costs. A buyer of an electric truck in 2032 — when the rule will have been fully implemented — could save between $3,700 and $10,500 on fuel and maintenance expenses annually, according to the EPA.

The Biden administration has also provided billions of dollars’ worth of subsidies for electric trucks and their charging infrastructure, mainly through the 2021 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/08/10/senate-infrastructure-bill-what-is-in-it/" target=_blank>bipartisan infrastructure law</a> and the 2022 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/07/28/manchin-schumer-climate-deal/" target=_blank>climate law</a>. This month, the administration <a href="https://www.energy.gov/articles/biden-harris-administration-releases-first-ever-national-strategy-accelerate-deployment" target=_blank>unveiled a detailed strategy</a> for building a “national network” of charging stations along heavily traveled freight corridors.

In terms of passenger cars, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/candidates/joe-biden-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">President Biden</a> has vowed to build 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations in the United States by 2030. But more than two years after Congress passed the infrastructure law, it has only funded the construction of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2024/03/28/ev-charging-stations-slow-rollout/" target="_blank">seven EV charging stations </a>across four states, reflecting technological challenges and bureaucratic delays. (Overall, the country has about 175,000 EV chargers.)

Still, the freight strategy is a “historic document” that should give the truck industry confidence in investing in an electric future, said Craig Segall, vice president at Evergreen Action, an environmental group.

Truck makers, he added, should “pivot from complaining about the lack of infrastructure to now using this strategy to solve their own problems.”

Dateline Award from the D.C. Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, 2021

Brown University, BA in English

Maxine Joselow is a staff writer who covers climate change and the environment.

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