President Joe Biden has just months to act on his promise to protect Americans from deadly freight pollution while making America a clean vehicle leader.
To do so, he'll need the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to stand up to a powerful cabal of truck manufacturers waging a deceptive campaign to weaken and delay common sense rules. Will the president act on behalf of Americans or cave to big auto companies' demands to pad their profits by poisoning our lungs?
Air pollution is killing us. It shortens our lifespans, kills thousands prematurely every year, and induces heart and lung diseases like asthma and stroke that hospitalize thousands. Communities of color, children, and people experiencing poverty are disproportionately harmed by these negative impacts.
Heavy-duty vehicles, including the trucks that move goods, contribute significantly to this air pollution. They make up only 10 percent of vehicles on the road, but contribute more than 25 percent of harmful, climate-warming emissions. Electrifying these trucks is an achievable solution to reduce this harm and protect our health.
Right now, the EPA is deciding on rules to cut truck pollution and shift national new heavy duty truck sales towards electric vehicles over the next decade. The public benefits from cleaner air, including fewer deaths, less strain on hospitals, and fewer risks to children's healthy development are valued at $320 billion through 2055.
These rules don't only benefit public health, but the bottom lines of fleet drivers and manufacturers too.
Electric trucks are rapidly becoming cheaper to own and run for fleet drivers than diesel-powered big rigs. Models with a battery range of 150 miles—more than 1.5x that needed to complete the majority of U.S. freight deliveries—are already available. And historic levels of government financing from President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act are making the switch more practical by expanding manufacturers' production capacity and installing charging stations in key national trucking corridors.
The electric truck market is growing, paving the way towards a cleaner future for the industry. Increasingly, companies are committing to electrifying their fleets. More U.S. states are adopting truck electrification rules with supportive financial incentives for manufacturers and consumers. Demand is so strong it is projected to exceed supply.
But despite the plethora of incentives and market signals promoting a cleaner future, a small but powerful group of manufacturers have unleashed their lobbyists to weaken and delay EPA's rules.
Industry associations formed the misleadingly named Clean Freight Coalition to expand their political influence. They have falsely claimed that EPA's standards are unachievable, despite manufacturers being years ahead in meeting California's tougher rules and sales keep increasing. Coalition lobbyists have demanded the EPA end regulations supporting progress, waging an all out assault on rules designed to clean up the air we breathe.
Distressingly, this propaganda and influence peddling seem to be working on the EPA: the proposed rules are weaker than the standards manufacturers are already meeting in California and lack the full range of pollution-reducing technologies that major U.S. trucking manufacturers and California's Air Resources Board have agreed on.
But the industry's political influence isn't the only problem. These associations, and the handful of companies they represent, control the engine market. They can use their power to control the prices and availability of electric vehicles, all while continuing big spending to influence government policy.
This isn't a theoretical risk. In 2016, the European Union caught a cartel of big manufacturers fixing truck prices and passing compliance costs onto buyers for 14 years across the continent. The EU fined them billions of euros in one of its biggest antitrust cases ever. Even that eye-popping sum was only a fraction of the economic and social damage those companies caused. Industry cartels like these have the economic might to challenge governments and have used their power to oppose standards that could tie their hands.
We don't know whether the companies are up to the harm they caused in Europe here. But the same companies embroiled in the EU trucking cartel scandal are the ones most active in fighting EPA's rules. Volvo and Daimler make big climate claims in public while spamming regulators with letters and meetings opposing action. Daimler previously stated it would keep consumer prices high, even if materials costs decline, for its own gain. Considering Volvo and Daimler are two of the top four companies making up U.S. production, both are in a position to be economic bullies to protect their bottom lines.
We don't need a trucking cartel intimidating environmental agencies or harming workers and small businesses by jacking up their prices and manipulating the market. Unless Biden hangs tough, this may very well happen in the U.S.
The clock is ticking down as the companies keep fighting. The EPA's decisions must be finalized by the spring. The question now, as the industry uses every tool at their disposal, is whether Biden and his team will bend to the combined might of the trucking cartel or will side with the people.
Craig Segall is Vice President at Evergreen Action. Prior to joining Evergreen, he spent nearly a decade in state government, most recently as deputy executive officer of the California Air Resources Board.
Chelsea Hodgkins is the Senior EV Advocate for Public Citizen's Climate Program. She advocates for the US government and car companies to uptake strong ZEV regulations and improve their environmental, labor, and human rights practices in supply chains.
The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.
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