Clean Fuels files lawsuit over US EPA’s heavy-duty truck rule

Clean Fuels Alliance America asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit June 18 to review the U.S. EPA’s final Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles-Phase 3 rule.

In the final rule, EPA evaluated a range of potential alternative fuel and engine configurations for 2027-’32 heavy-duty vehicles.

The agency, however, specifically declined to consider biodiesel and renewable diesel in combination with existing engines that are already widely available.

“EPA put its thumb on the scale to favor electric and hybrid vehicles that are not guaranteed to be widely available in the timeframe addressed by this rule,” said Kurt Kovarik, the vice president of federal affairs for Clean Fuels.

“The agency refused to consider the increasing availability of biodiesel and renewable diesel as an achievable, affordable technology for meeting the goals of the heavy-duty truck rule by 2032,” Kovarik added.

The final rule came out March 29.

According to EPA, the standards will avoid 1 billion tons of GHG emissions.

Trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles are vital to the U.S. economy but account for 25 percent of all GHG emissions from the transportation sector, which is itself the single largest source of GHG emissions in the U.S.

The Phase 3 standards build on EPA’s heavy-duty Phase 2 program from 2016 “and maintain that program’s flexible structure, which is designed to reflect the diverse nature of the heavy-duty vehicle industry,” the agency stated. “The standards are technology-neutral and performance-based, allowing each manufacturer to choose what set of emissions-control technologies is best suited for them and the needs of their customers. Available technologies include advanced internal-combustion engine vehicles, hybrid vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, battery electric vehicles, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. These new standards apply to heavy-duty vocational vehicles and tractors (such as day cabs and sleeper cabs on tractor-trailer trucks).”

At the time, Clean Fuels and others, including the Engine Technology Forum, expressed extreme disappointment in the standards.

“In the rule, EPA adopts new standards that are designed expressly to incentivize electric vehicles for model year 2027-2032 heavy-duty vehicles,” Clean Fuels stated in March. “EPA did not evaluate use of biodiesel and renewable diesel as part of engine systems to meet the new standards, focusing primarily on tailpipe emissions. However, the agency considered a range of alternative fuel and engine configurations, such as natural gas and hydrogen. EPA did recognize that equipment makers will continue to have the option to use biodiesel and renewable in their compliance strategies.”

ETF Executive Director Allen Schaeffer said in March that the challenging new standards require truck makers to convert an increasing percentage of total vehicle sales each year to zero-emission vehicles.

“The trucking industry is already a substantial contributor to lowering GHG and other emissions from investing in new ultra-clean heavy-duty trucks and using renewable low-carbon renewable biofuels including biodiesel, renewable diesel and renewable natural gas,” Schaeffer said at the time. “In recent years, more GHG reductions in California have come from the use of renewable biodiesel fuels in diesel trucks than from vehicle electrification. In a study of 10 northeastern states, it was determined that over the next decade switching to renewable diesel fuel and accelerating the turnover of the oldest diesel trucks to the newest generation of diesels would achieve three times the GHG reductions at 25 percent of the cost of a full zero-emission (electric) vehicle option.”