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EPA Is Legislating Again!

EPA Finalizes Rules to Decimate US Trucking Industry and Send Consumer Goods Prices Soaring

On Tuesday, December 20, crazed EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan announced the final national clean air standards to cut smog- and soot-forming emissions from heavy-duty trucks.


The new standards will slash dangerous pollution from semi-trucks.

The EPA insists the new rules will protect public health, especially the health of vulnerable populations in underserved, overburdened communities.

This is pure leftist insanity and will force underserved, overburdened communities to pay more for their food and consumer goods.

These people are dangerous and insane.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule Tuesday that will impose stricter nitrogen dioxide emissions standards on new heavy-duty trucks, a move that will substantially hike operating costs for truckers, experts and industry representatives told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The EPA’srule, which is more than 80% stricter than the previous regulation, will require large trucks, delivery vans and buses manufactured after 2027 to cut nitrogen dioxide emissions by nearly 50% by 2045, according to an agencypress release. The agency’s rule is intended to push truckers to phase out diesel-powered vehicles and use electric vehicles (EV) instead; however, the compliance costs associated with such rules could suffocate an industry that is not ready to transition to EVs, experts told the DCNF.

“It’s an overreach that is indicative of this administration’s tendency to set aside balance to achieve the goals of activists that they are politically aligned with,” Mandy Gunasekara, a senior policy analyst for the Independent Women’s Forum and former EPA Chief of Staff during the Trump administration, told the DCNF. “It’s going to squeeze out the mid-sized and smaller trucking companies because they’re not going to be able to afford to purchase the new, extremely expensive equipment required to continue to do what they do.”
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ArishMell · 70-79, M
I know battery-electric vans already exist though their range is not very high, especially when laden. Also, companies like Volvo (ex-Swedish, now Chinese-owned) are developing electric heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) but I don't see them being very practical for a long time yet, if ever. Especially for continental distances.

Hydrogen fuelled maybe: that is also under development. The British tractor and excavator manufacturer JCB is already building such vehicles to use hydrogen, but I don't know if by i.c. or fuel-cell. It's a bit ahead as there are not yet many places selling the gas.

How do the proposed specifications compare internationally? If vehicles already satisfying the new regulations but made in other countries are already available, they could out-compete the American manufacturers.

The emissions regulations in the UK and Europe are already strict but it doesn't seem to have harmed trade very much, apart from making life difficult in local-authority "Clean Air Zone" rules in many city-centres. It's certainly making money for the makers of the urea solution called (here) "Ad-blu", a catalyst that breaks the nitrogen oxides to harmless nitrogen and oxygen; in Diesel-engined vehicles equipped to use it.

So the worst fears reported there might not really come about. The report does not say the new laws are retrospective but will apply to HGVs and vans to be built in future.
4meAndyou · F
@ArishMell The author of this post, Budwick, sadly, may have passed away. He has been missing from SW for 2 years.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@4meAndyou Oh, I did not know that!

I am sorry - I hope I have not caused any distress to anyone.

I must admit I'd not looked at the date of his post, but had been reading various threads on the topic. I'd also seen his name on various others so thought he is still active here.

Thank-you for advising me.