CARB Gets EPA Approval for Strict New Emission Standards

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has cleared the way for California to impose stricter emission standards on heavy-duty vehicles than federal law allows.

In a March 31 decision, the EPA announced that it was granting the California Air Resource Board (CARB) waivers to federal rules under the Clean Air Act governing motor vehicles and motor vehicle engines.

With the waivers — which are the only way for a state to exceed these federal mandates — CARB can now implement its Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) rule, which will require manufacturers and retailers of heavy-duty equipment and engines to sell an increasing number of zero-emission vehicles. This process will begin in 2024 and continue through 2045, by which point all trucks and heavy-duty engines sold in the state will have to be emission-free.

Additionally, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that eight other states “have moved to adopt or are working to adopt ACT.”

Along with the ACT waiver, the EPA also granted a second waiver to CARB, this one involving emissions warranty periods for heavy-duty diesel engines from model year 2022 and beyond.

Waiver 3 Delayed

A third waiver request from CARB — concerning a proposal to reduce nitrogen oxide and particulate matter emissions from medium- and heavy-duty engine — was put on hold at CARB’s request, the EPA noted.

The EPA held a public hearing on the topic in June 2022, and noted that “the vast majority of comments EPA received supported granting the waiver requests,” according to the decision. EPA Administrator Michael Regan wrote in his decision that “waiver opponents have not met their burden of proof in order for EPA to deny” either of CARB’s requests.

One of those opponents, American Trucking Associations President Chris Spear, wrote in a March 31 release that “by granting California’s waiver … the EPA is handing over the keys as a national regulator. … This isn’t the United States of California, and in order to mollify a never satisfied fringe environmental lobby by allowing the state to proceed with these technologically infeasible rules on unworkable and unrealistic timelines, the EPA is sowing the ground for a future supply chain crisis.”