EPA Finalizes New Limits To Reduce Health Impacts and Lower Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized tough new limits on pollution from heavy-duty vehicles, including trucks and buses. The stronger new limits are designed to reduce both health-threatening soot and smog, as well as planet-heating greenhouse gases. The new standards build on an earlier phase of emissions controls, and take effect with the model year 2027 vehicles. 

“We appreciate that the Biden-Harris administration and the EPA have taken an important step forward to finalize tailpipe pollution limits that are feasible and will help advance the adoption of electric trucks and buses,” said LCV Government Affairs Advocate on Climate Change & Clean Energy Darien Davis. “We are excited that the EPA is moving to support the modernization of vehicle standards across the transportation sector that will ultimately improve air quality in communities across the country and fight against life-shortening air pollution and the climate crisis. We look forward to continued work with the Biden-Harris administration to best leverage their significant federal investments through the Clean School Bus and Heavy-Duty Vehicles Programs in communities of color and communities with low wealth to deliver cleaner air and environmental justice at an even more rapid pace than the rules alone could deliver.” 

The Importance of the New Limits

While heavy-duty vehicles make up less than ten percent of the vehicles on the road, they are responsible for about 25 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector in the United States. Trucking and freight pollution also disproportionately harms communities of color nationwide. That’s because highways and industrial facilities (which often rely on frequent truck deliveries) have consistently been located in or near these communities. 

The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC)’s Land and Community Program Leader Trip Pollard called the EPA’s action “a critical step to clean up pollution from trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles that have an outsized impact on our climate and do major harm to communities that have traditionally borne the brunt of pollution from highways and industrial sites. These new standards will help reduce climate pollution while improving health outcomes for hard-hit communities, but we also know more is needed to clean up the largest and most polluting trucks.”