With holiday shopping season now in full force, it’s prime time for diesel trucks. But with all those trucks can come a lot of pollution – and some environmental groups are calling for more of those trucks to be zero-emission.
The California Air Resources Board, or CARB, is preparing to adopt the nation’s first electric truck manufacturing standard, called the Advanced Clean Truck rule.
It requires about four percent of trucks on the road to be zero-emission by 2030.
Environmental groups across the state, including the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice here in the Inland Empire, are calling for that number to be increased.
Vidaurre: “We're asking for 15 percent of the on-road vehicles by 2030, which equates to 280,000 trucks.”
Andrea Vidaurre is with the CCAEJ. She says a stronger truck rule would go a long way towards addressing “diesel death zones” – areas where pollution from diesel trucks can cause health hazards to the community.
Vidaurre: “The only way out of these diesel death zones is by eliminating the problem completely, and that's two ways, right - one way is you transition the technology that you're using, or you take out those sources of pollution out of that area. And we know that the industry that's a big economic driver in a lot of these communities are not going to necessarily leave, right? So what has to happen is that they have to actually transition their technology.”
A public hearing on the draft standard will be held on December 12.