EPA, NHTSA Took Lead Role on Greenhouse Gas Rules This Year
By Eric Miller,Staff Reporter
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After several years of anticipation throughout the trucking industry, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Transportation Safety Administration finally in October released their joint proposed rule to regulate greenhouse gases for the commercial transportation sector.
The 306-page joint rulemaking would regulate grams of carbon dioxide per ton-mile and gallons of fuel per ton-mile, rather than simply miles per gallon, the basis for automobile standards.
The two agencies proposed dividing heavy-duty trucks into nine categories based on size — Class 7, Class 8 day cab and Class 8 sleeper — and the height of the cab’s roof: low, mid-height and high.
Based on the categories, the limits for CO2 emissions in 2014 would range from 65 grams per ton-mile for a low-roof Class 8 sleeper to 118 grams for a high-roof Class 7 day cab, and the fuel-efficiency marks would range from 6.3 gallons per 1,000 ton-miles at the low end to 11.6 gallons at the high end.
But EPA’s an-nouncements in 2010 were not limited to the truck rule.
Also in October, the agency said it was revisiting its guidance for selective catalytic reduction technology in heavy-duty trucks as a result of a court settlement with truck maker Navistar Inc. in April.
In April, Navistar announced the out-of-court settlements with EPA and the California Air Resources Board over its court challenges to EPA’s formal guidance regarding the use of SCR to meet federal 2010 diesel engine emissions-reduction standards.
Navistar, the only heavy truck maker using exhaust gas recirculation technology to reduce emissions, had alleged in court documents that pollution controls on SCR engines could be defeated easily.
Navistar said it withdrew the lawsuit because CARB officials signed a written agreement that “addresses the issues that prompted the court action.” At that time, EPA pledged to review its SCR guidance and hold a joint workshop on SCR with CARB.
Also, in August the EPA issued a proposal to designate scrap tires and used oil as solid waste, a suggestion that ATA said could be extremely costly for the trucking industry because they would increase fees to dispose of the materials because of a decline in the number of outlets available to burn them as fuel in industrial furnaces.
EPA’s proposal would reduce options for truckers to discard the materials because most of them treat scrap tires as a useful commodity, even contracting with third parties to deliver them to beneficial end-use markets, ATA said.
Although lawyers are still going through the fine print, trucking industry and truck engine manufacturer executives generally have said so far that the sweeping new truck rule is workable.
However, environmental groups at a November public hearing said the standards should be tougher.
The proposed regulation not only is flexible enough to be matched with a variety of truck models, sizes, weights and functions, but it also sets a greenhouse gas emissions reduction standard that truck engine manufacturers believe is technologically attainable, said Glen Kedzie, vice president and environmental affairs counsel for American Trucking Associations.
“The responsibility under the terms of the rule doesn’t fall on the shoulders of the fleets; it falls on the shoulders of the manufacturers,” Kedzie said. “At the end of the day, they have to show that they have achieved the targets that are set under the rule.”
