California’s blue state allies in the transition to electric trucks are getting cold feet.
New Jersey — one of 10 states following California’s rules to transform the heavy-duty trucking industry — is considering giving truck makers a break from the need to sell electric models.
“The state is just not ready for it yet,” said New Jersey Senate Transportation Chairman Patrick Diegnan, who this week introduced a bill that would delay the start of New Jersey’s zero-emission sales mandate by two years, amid of worrying that there are not enough electric trucks or chargers.
New Jersey is not an outlier.
Regulators in Oregon, Massachusetts and New York are all considering slowing parts of California regulations aimed at increasing the number of electric trucks on the road and offering cleaner diesel engines to trucking companies that can’t afford electric models.
The hiccups illustrate the acute challenges Democratic leaders across the country face as they try to move the trucking industry away from diesel engines. These obstacles will remain even if Vice President Kamala Harris claims the White House — and will multiply if former President Donald Trump wins a second term while promising to revoke any “unspent” funds under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Nowhere is the tension more evident than in New Jersey, home to one of the busiest stretches of truck highways in the country: a Democratic governor and a congressional delegation are pushing for a clean future for trucks, while legislative Democrats are unsure if there is one .
As state lawmakers push for a delay, New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone this week joined Biden officials in the Garden State along the I-95 corridor to tout $250 million in Inflation Reduction Act funding for electric truck charging stations .
The two dozen charging stations, which will be built between Maryland and Connecticut, are intended as a “proof of the lasting impact” of President Joe Biden’s signature climate spending package, said Pallone, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
But California’s policy to promote electric trucks — which other states could join, under California’s special permission to set stricter-than-federal vehicle pollution rules — still depends on having enough cleaner diesel and electric models on the market. as charging stations to supply them with fuel.
Diegnan, a Democrat, said the infrastructure gap is too big to close in the year before the rules take effect for the 2025 model year.
“Obviously, no one is against the goal,” he said. “I’m not saying we should give up on the goal, but we should certainly delay it so we can get input and move forward accordingly.”
California regulators have insulated their truck rules against a possible second Trump administration by signing an agreement with manufacturers not to challenge the agency’s rule to move to 100 percent zero-emission truck sales by 2036.
But officials in other states say manufacturers haven’t brought enough alternatives to market to meet demand.
Regulators in Massachusetts and Oregon said earlier this month they would delay a new California-modeled rule requiring trucking companies to buy cleaner diesel trucks, citing a shortage of diesel models.
Officials in New York and Massachusetts are also creating a special exception to the rules for snow plows and street sweepers, which city leaders say they can’t find cleaner models of.
California regulators themselves are also making it easier for trucking companies to comply with the rules. The California Air Resources Board voted Thursday to change the Advanced Clean Trucks rule to give companies more leeway to comply with the zero-emission sales mandate.
A spokesperson for CARB said the agency has been working with the industry to address the concerns. “We have found that partnerships and continued collaboration on compliance, innovation and emissions reductions have been successful, and we encourage other states to also identify solutions that will help advance their air quality goals,” Lys Mendez said in a statement.
Truck manufacturers claim the market isn’t ready for it yet.
Because California regulations require a percentage of all trucks sold to be electric, and those models have not sold well, companies have limited the range of diesel options to comply with regulations.
“Car manufacturers want to sell as many as possible [zero-emission vehicles] possible,” said Jed Mandel, president of the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association, which represents companies such as Volvo, Daimler and Cummins. ‘But given the lack of infrastructure and concerns about costs, customers are not buying them. As a result, manufacturers are limited in the number of traditional diesels they can sell.”
These complaints are not limited to Oregon and Massachusetts. Joe Rajkovacz, director of government affairs and communications for the Western States Trucking Association, said the group has advised its members in California to buy used trucks out of state because they struggle to find diesel options closer to home and electric is too expensive or too remains expensive. impractical for long-haul flights.
CARB’s Executive Officer Steven Cliff pushed back on these arguments in a memo last month, arguing that the zero-emissions targets won’t limit diesel engine sales in 2024 because companies can buy available credits instead of actually selling electric trucks, allowing them to use diesel engines can continue to offer. models.
Environmentalists say the underlying problem is that electric truck models are priced too high, which discourages trucking companies from buying them. Craig Segall, former executive director of CARB and vice president of Evergreen Action, sent a letter to California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Friday calling for oversight of truck manufacturers’ pricing and production strategies.
“I think they would very much prefer a world where they can invest less in cleaning up their combustion fleet and transition to zero emissions at whatever pace they want,” he said.
But Ray Minjares, heavy vehicle program director at the International Council on Clean Transportation, said fingers shouldn’t just be pointed at manufacturers. That’s because CARB officials likely made a mistake by thinking that mandating sales would only lower prices.
“To put it bluntly, the manufacturers have taken over the situation and decided which market they want to see,” he said.
In New Jersey, the fight to pass the clean truck rule was a test of Governor Phil Murphy’s environmental agenda and of California’s ability to influence the entire heavy-duty truck market.
Murphy spokesperson Natalie Hamilton hinted in a statement that the governor would scale back the bills.
“While the Governor’s Office does not comment on pending legislation, we remain committed to implementing Advanced Clean Trucks on the current timeline,” she said.
Beyond Murphy’s confidence and federal money for chargers, lawmakers are still unsure the state is ready to follow California’s ambitions.
New Jersey Assembly Transportation Chairman Clinton Calabrese, a Democrat, said climate change is serious and a delay is a “failure for everyone” but necessary because the chargers are not available, electric trucks are not available and to the extent that the case, they are not available. costs ‘an arm and a leg’.
“I would say it’s not a stretch to delay this by two years,” Calabrese said. “It’s not like we’re saying we should postpone this by ten years.”
Marie French contributed to this report.
