CARB Withdraws Waiver Request for Electric Truck Fleet Rule

In a stunning development, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) has withdrawn its request for a federal waiver to implement the state’s Advanced Clean Fleets rule. In a brief letter on Monday to Jane Nishida, acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Steven Cliff, executive officer of the California Air Resources Board, said CARB was withdrawing the waiver request that it made in late 2023.  Historically, CARB has been granted waiver to implement regulations on engines, and most thought this was a slam dunk. But then President-Elect Trump won the recent Presidential election. Liane Randolph, the CARB chair, was quoted stating “Frankly, given that the Trump administration has not been publicly supportive of some of the strategies that we have deployed in these regulations, we thought it would be prudent to pull back and consider our options” in the New York Times.

Some further explanation is needed here though. The Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) rule would have required drayage trucks and certain fleets to replace their trucks with zero emission trucks by certain dates.  The Advanced Clean Truck (ACT) rule is an OEM mandate on new trucks coming into the marketplace and that rule has already been granted a waiver.  Furthermore, the ACF rule and other rules that have waiver requests into EPA have NOx emissions reductions associated with them. If those are withdrawn those emissions reductions will have to be made up somewhere.  And that is a concern as to what other emissions sources may be brought into focus. Stay tuned!