The California Air Resources Board has released a first draft of the Advanced Clean Fleet (ACF) rule, which is intended to put the state on an aggressive and achievable path to a 100% electric truck fleet and calls for a 100% electric truck sales target of 2040.
In advance of the draft rule release, health, business, labor, equity, climate and policy experts – along with more than 10,000 Californians – submitted policy recommendations to CARB calling for 100% zero emission truck sales by 2035. Achieving zero pollution trucks on California’s roadways is critical to addressing the devastating health and climate impacts of diesel exhaust. The recommendations from experts aligns the rule with the governor’s targets to accelerate climate action including his Executive Order to achieve 100% light-duty electric vehicles sales by 2035 and the state’s overall goal of having 100% electric vehicles on road by 2045.
Diesel exhaust is a deadly air pollution problem in California that contains more than 40 known cancer-causing organic substances, which makes it responsible for about 70% of cancer risk related to air toxins in the state. Freight hubs and corridors concentrate air pollution in zip codes where the median income is far lower, and the percent of people of color is far higher than the state average.
“An Advanced Clean Fleet rule that will ensure 100 percent of new truck sales be zero emission by 2035 is not only critical for reaching our climate change goals, it is also a long overdue action to alleviate the insurmountable and disproportionate burdens our transportation system places on frontline communities of color every day,” says Leslie Aguayo, climate equity program manager at The Greenlining Institute. “A strong ACF regulation is public health, it is equity and it is the path forward for a just California.”
“Setting a strong electric truck fleet standard will contribute to California’s economic recovery by helping create good-paying, clean-energy jobs in the growing electric vehicle industry,” adds Jeremy Abrams, business manager for International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 569. “Statewide training initiatives are already preparing the workforce for the shift to zero-emissions, it’s up to CARB to create the conditions for a robust electric truck marketplace.”
More important than “Zero Emissions” is what is the “carbon cost” of an energy source for transportation from production to combustion. Total Electric Transportation has zero emissions, but has significant “carbon cost” from the production of the electricity from either natural gas or coal. Not to mention the carbon cost of the production and disposal of batteries in addition to the mining of the lithium to make the batteries work. Adding in all of this “carbon cost,” the end result is that Total Electric has a much higher total “carbon cost” than the use of Renewable Natural Gas for transportation… Read more »