Lost in the wildfire smoke right now is a rare climbdown by California’s relentless environmental regulators. As you may know, California announced a mandate in 2023 that would ban purchasing new diesel-fueled trucks by 2036, and that the state’s entire truck fleet (nearly 2 million) would have to convert to emission-free propulsion by 2042.
There was always one little catch: this regulation would require federal approval by the EPA. California surely would have received this waiver in a second Biden (or Harris) Administration. But the incoming Trump Administration will not, and in fact proposes rolling back current EPA approvals for California’s madness over cars, such as the mandate banning all gasoline-powered cars in the state by 2036.
So yesterday California’s Air Resources Board withdrew its application for the EPA waiver. It was always an absurd proposal: the weight of truck batteries alone, never mind the problem of charging time and infrastructure, would have imposed even more road damage than heavy trucks already do on California’s crumbling highways, and when a battery the size contemplated for heavy trucks catches fire in an accident, look out.
This wasn’t the only retreat by the regulators:
The state withdrew three other measures regulating emissions from diesel-powered locomotives, commercial harbor craftand refrigeration unit engines that are hauled by trucks and rail cars.
Under the railroad rule, only locomotives less than 23 years old would have been allowed in California beginning in 2030, unless they were zero emissions. The rule also limited how long they could idle.
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