In September 2021, the NYSDEC released a proposed regulation that would significantly reduce air pollution from trucks. If adopted, the regulation would accelerate zero-emission truck sales, resulting in improved air quality statewide and in particular those communities disproportionately impacted by transportation-related pollution.
Using California’s Advanced Clean Trucks Rule as a template, the proposed regulation would require truck manufacturers to transition to clean, electric zero-emission vehicles. Truck manufacturers would be required to meet a certain annual sales percentage of zero-emission trucks, which will vary among vehicle weight classes, beginning with model year 2025. By the 2035 model year, at least 55 percent of all new Class 2b-3 pickup trucks and vans, 75 percent of all new Class 4-8 trucks, and 40 percent of all new Class 7-8 tractors sold in New York State will be zero-emission. The proposed regulation provides medium- and heavy-duty truck manufacturers with several compliance options and would require a one-time reporting from applicable truck fleets.
Many of New York’s disadvantaged communities, predominantly home to low-income Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, are adjacent to industrial facilities and transit routes with heavy truck traffic. The proposed regulation would help address disproportionate risks and health and pollution burdens affecting these communities by putting New York on a path towards all zero-emission short-haul drayage fleet in ports and railyards, and zero-emission “last-mile” delivery trucks and vans.
In December 2021, the proposed rules were adopted.