California asks EPA for waiver to implement Advanced Clean Fleets rule
With less than three weeks before California’s Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) rule is set to take effect, the state is seeking a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency that would end any questions about whether the state can implement it.
A waiver request for California-specific environmental regulations is generally required under the federal Clean Air Act (CAA). The CAA allows the state and its unique status under the act to impose environmental restrictions and mandates that go beyond federal law as long as a waiver is granted by EPA. No other state has that ability.
The EPA in March granted a waiver for the Advanced Clean Trucks rule (ACT), the companion legislation to ACF that is a mandate on truck manufacturers; the ACF is a mandate on the purchasers of what the manufacturers produce. There is no corresponding federal rule as restrictive and mandate-heavy as the ACT.
The California Air Resources Board submitted the waiver request for ACF in November, but did not make a public announcement of its action.
The first wave of significant regulations under ACF take effect January 1. The steps that go into effect that day are not particularly onerous and outside of impacts on drayage there is little in the ACF on day one that would require significant steps to be taken while the waiver approval process plays out.
Whether the California Air Resources Board needed a waiver has long been a subject of hot debate. CARB reportedly has told trucking industry representatives it did not need a waiver, based on its reading of the Clean Air Act; trucking companies disagreed. In its October lawsuit against the ACF, the California Trucking Association said “while CARB may claim otherwise, ACT cannot be enforced until such waiver is granted.”
Elsewhere in the lawsuit, CTA made a similar statement: “CARB is prohibited from enforcing its own emissions standards in the absence of an EPA waiver.”
Whatever feelings CARB may have had on the issue at the time, the waiver request has been filed.
The overarching mandate in the ACF is that no zero emission vehicles (ZEVs) can be sold in the state after 2035, with their ongonig usage phased out over several years beyond that.
Two-minute warning
“Whether the waiver request was as a result of the [CTA] lawsuit, or just a realization of the law, I can’t say either way,” Matt Schrap, executive director of the Harbor Trucking Association, told FreightWaves.
The HTA represents the drayage community in the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, and rules impacting new drayage vehicles that go into effect Jan. 1 are generally seen as the most impactful of the ACF regulations that will be implemented in the new year.
Source: freightwaves.com
