On Earth Day, EPA Pushes Truck Rule That Will Hurt Workers and Businesses, Not Help Planet

 

On this Earth Day, the Environmental Protection Agency is celebrating its new emissions standard for heavy-duty trucks as a triumph for the environment.

The irony is, this policy will do nothing for our planet, but it will inflict severe economic damage on hardworking Americans.

The EPA’s latest rule, while not explicitly mandating production of electric-powered trucks, projects a potential compliance pathway requiring 50% of all new heavy-duty vehicles to be emission-free by 2032. This leaves truck manufacturers with two primary options: electric- or hydrogen-powered trucks.

Although hydrogen combustion emits only water and no carbon dioxide, both battery-electric and hydrogen fuel-cell trucks come with significant drawbacks compared to their diesel counterparts.

These alternative-fuel vehicles are three times more expensive than the more reliable diesel-powered trucks. Moreover, while a diesel rig easily may cover 1,500 miles on a single tank, a hydrogen-powered truck may travel only a third of that distance, and an electric version is limited to a mere tenth of that range...more