DOT, EPA propose nation’s first emissions,
fuel efficiency standards for trucks
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Oct. 25 proposed the first-ever national standards for reducing fuel
consumption and carbon emissions for the nation’s heavy-duty truck fleet. The announcement of the proposed rules—
all 672 pages of them—comes five months after the Obama
administration ordered the EPA to develop standards that
would reduce emissions from heavy-duty vehicles.
It’s not surprising that truck emissions should be on the
administration’s radar. It has been estimated that in 2007,
tractor-trailers emitted about 20 percent of transportation-related greenhouse gases. Heavy-duty tractor-trailers consume about 22 billion gallons of diesel each year, according
to industry estimates.
EPA and DOT’s National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA) proposed new standards for three
categories of “heavy” trucks that run on diesel fuel: combination tractors, heavy-duty pickups and vans, and vocational vehicles. The rules would not take effect until mid-2011.
For the combination tractors—95 percent of which burn
diesel—the agencies have proposed engine and vehicle stan-
dards that would cover trucks of the 2014–2018 model years.
The objective is to achieve up to a 20-percent reduction in
CO2 emissions and fuel consumption by the 2018 model
year, the agencies said. For heavy-duty pickup trucks and
vans, the agencies are proposing separate gasoline and diesel
truck standards that would be phased in starting in the 2014
model year. Those standards aim to achieve up to a 10-per-
cent reduction for gasoline vehicles and a 15-percent reduc-
tion for diesel vehicles by the 2018 model year.
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