The fate of the Clean Truck Partnership (CTP), the 2023 grand bargain between California and the nation’s engine manufacturers, has been a subject of debate with the end of the federal government’s waiver that served as a catalyst for the deal.
And now direct action has been taken against it. The Western States Trucking Association (WSTA) has petitioned the California Office of Administrative Law to determine whether the CTP was properly reached under California law.
Sean Edgar, the environmental policy & media advisor at WSTA, described the CTP in an interview with FreightWaves as “an unholy alliance between original equipment manufacturers and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) that is resulting in tremendous chaos and distress for the trucking industry.”
The WSTA has filed multiple lawsuits in different venues over the years regarding the regulation of transportation fuels and emissions. Driving this particular action targeting the CTP, Edgar said, is the organization’s belief that “it is pretty apparent that CARB has completed disrespect for federal law,” citing the Congressional action under the Congressional Review Act (and subsequently signed by President Trump) that targeted a key California regulation–the Omnibus NOx rule–that is key to the CTP.
Beyond the WSTA action, whether the CTP could survive given the changed regulatory landscape has become a significant question among trucking regulatory observers in the last six months, starting with the decision by CARB to withdraw its request for a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that would allow the implementation of the state’s Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) rule.
The Congressional Action followed, later signed by President Trump, that revoked waivers granted by the Biden administration’s EPA allowing the implementation of California’s Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) rule and the Omnibus nitrogen oxide (NOx) rules. The ACT required OEMs to sell a growing percentage of zero emission trucks into the state on the way to a diesel-free fleet in the 2040’s. The NOx rule required a reduction starting in 2027 of emissions of that pollutant from heavy-duty engines.
The CTP was a deal reached in July 2023 among CARB, several truck manufacturers and the OEM’s trade association, the Engine Manufacturers Association. Under the CTP, CARB agreed to align its proposed rules on NOx emissions with federal standards, thereby putting off a more stringent state deadline until 2027.
It also saw CARB agree to a moratorium on any new regulations for at least three years’ implementation and four years’ lead time, and the truck manufacturers and EMA agreed they would meet the CARB standards “regardless of any attempts by other entities to challenge California’s authority.”
The conundrum then in the wake of the last few months of regulatory upheaval is that the ACT and the ACF were to work together, with the ACF laying out requirements on what fleets needed to buy and the ACT pushing OEMs to make those zero emission vehicles. Separately, the Omnibus NOx rule was going to clean up the diesel engines that were to be sold, and with the engine manufacturers onboard via the CTP, the road to cleaner engines appeared to be well-paved.
But then the ACF waiver request was withdrawn, effectively killing the core of the program, which raised the question whether the OEMs could find buyers for the ZEVs they were required to sell in the state. Waivers for the ACT and the NOx rule were killed by the Congressional action under the CRA, and the court battle to have that overturned would take some time to have impact if it is ultimately successful.
Gotta stick to the deal?
And adding to the uncertainty, the CTP contains that problematic requirement, considering the events of the past weeks, that all parties proceed regardless of those outside attempts to push back against California’s action.
The filing by the WSTA is the first concrete step taken by a CTP foe since those regulatory shifts took place.
In a brief statement, a CARB spokeswoman said the agency can not comment on the WSTA petition to OAL. But she added, “CARB believes there’s been no change to the Clean Truck Partnership.”
Edgar said under state procedures, the Office of Administrative Law (which is under the state’s executive branch) has 60 days to respond to the petition filed by WSTA. After that response, Edgar said, his organization will decide what steps to take next.
He added the agency is not seen as a rubberstamp for all regulatory actions. Edgar cited a rejection by OAL earlier this year of some changes in California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard. Revised LCFS standards will be going into effect July 1. The LCFS is a credit-based program designed to incentivize the use of lower carbon transportation fuels, such as renewable diesel.
No news from Nebraska
There is another legal action against the CTP: a suit filed in November by the state of Nebraska, the trade groups Energy Marketers of America and Renewable Fuels Nebraska against the EMA and the diesel manufacturers that signed the CTP: Navistar, Paccar and Volvo North America.
A look at the docket in that case reveals that little has happened with it since it was filed. The parties were all just given 90-day extensions on various filing deadlines in the case, which is in the state district court for Lincoln County, Nebraska.
In a formal statement on the action it took, the WSTA said CARB did not comply with the state’s Administrative Procedures Act (APA) in entering into a private agreement with the OEMs and the EMA “to adhere to selling only zero emission trucks to California (despite federal action to block the rule) and not inviting public comment to the agreement (a cornerstone to the APA).”
WSTA said the “net effect” of those actions “is a result termed ‘underground regulation,’ which is precisely what the APA is intended to avoid.”
The association does not represent over the road trucking companies in California; that’s the province of the California Trucking Association. The bulk of its membership represents fleets of various types of work trucks, such as dump trucks and water trucks.
According to the WSTA, former CARB deputy executive officer Craig Segall has said the CTP is “legally binding” despite the various blows to the regulations underpinning the CTP, possibly a reference to a statement Segall made in this article.
They shook hands
Segall also issued a statement last week through a representative about the CTP’s legal status. He was one of the negotiators who put together the deal.
“The companies shook hands with California on a workable path forward,” Segall said in the statement. “Will they now stand behind their commitments as others attack them? Or will they stay silent during this attack? My hope is that they will stand up for the electric future they claim to support.”
An email to the EMA had not been responded to by publication time.
An observer of the trucking regulatory scene described the engine manufacturers as “stuck between a rock and a hard place” over the CTP that it signed following the demise of the NOx waiver, the existence of which presumably was one of the reasons the organization came to the table.
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