2024 Trucking Regulations Update: It starts with cleaner air

It’s now a race between environmentalists and government regulators on which technology to mandate on the ground freight transportation community to lower carbon emissions. But whatever happens, who occupies the White House in 2025 will go a long way in determining how hard regulators come down on the trucking industry.

“Elections create uncertainty,” says Derek Leathers, chairman and CEO of Omaha, Neb.-based Werner Enterprises, the nation’s 6th-largest truckload carrier. “In 2025, we will have a new president and potentially leadership changes in Congress. Legislative and regulatory priorities will change—some will be drastic, while some will be for the better, and some for the worse.”

Leathers tells LM that Werner, like most trucking companies, is constantly monitoring state and federal elections to evaluate their potential impacts on their business and operations. “Like with any period of uncertainty, Werner remains focused on what it can do better to move critical freight 3.5 million miles a day,” he says.

It’s not as if the trucking industry hasn’t been here before. Successive rounds of diesel emissions regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over more than two decades created numerous cost challenges for heavy-duty trucks, including both the upfront cost of new equipment and downstream maintenance costs.

Full electrification of the U.S. commercial truck fleet would require nearly $1 trillion in infrastructure investment alone. “And that doesn’t include the cost of new battery electric trucks, which are much more expensive and can’t haul as much freight as traditional trucks,” adds Leathers.

Let’s take our annual look at what federal regulators are seeking from trucking, the potential impact and cost of those rules, and what other types of procedures the feds and states are looking to implement that could affect trucking rates and costs.

It all starts with cleaner air

Beginning with the introduction of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) in 2004 model year engines, followed by the diesel particulate filter (DPF) in 2007 to trap soot, diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) in 2010 to take on nitrogen oxides (NOx), and further greenhouse gas emissions reductions between 2014 and 2026 model years, changes to truck engines and their aftertreatment systems have been constant.

Of course, these clean air regulations hits fleets—and the shippers who pay their rates—in the pocketbook. A Class 8 truck that cost around $110,000 two decades ago has doubled in price, and that’s just initial cost. Fleet managers say maintenance and upkeep costs have gone up similarly.

Trucking executives say that they’re spending $195,000-plus for a later model year truck on average. Many respondents reported a purchase price of well above $200K for new trucks in the last few years. Some highly specialized units have even exceeded $300,000, but there’s wide variation in operations and equipment needs.

EPA has said in its rulemaking that truckers should expect generally lower owner-incurred emissions repair costs because of longer emission warranty requirements, as well as “improved serviceability in an effort by OEMs to decrease the repair costs that they will incur.”

The agency also stated that it expects that the longer useful life periods in the final standards “will result in more durable parts to ensure regulatory compliance over the longer timeframe.”

However, outside the warranty or useful life periods, EPA states that “we also expect that the more costly emissions control systems required by the final program may result in higher repair costs, which might increase owner-incurred costs” once warranty periods expire.

Other commitments pending

All of these latest regulations follow the 2015 Paris Agreement, which the U.S. has agreed to accept. Nearly every country in the world agreed that governments should work to prevent catastrophic impacts by trying to prevent the rise beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius. The agreement calls for a 45% reduction in global emissions by 2030 and reaching net-zero by 2050.

For years, the top imperative for most supply chain teams was to save on costs to boost company profits. Not anymore. Recently, consumers, investors and local and state governments have pushed for stronger measures that would include measuring and reducing the impact of supply chains on the environment.

The followings examples show that the approach is working:

• Walmart exceeded its supplier emissions targets through green initiatives.
• Ikea is reducing its ocean emissions through collaboration and other changes.
• The Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently issued a climate rule that affects manufacturers’ supply chains.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Suzanne Clark recently called out the growing problem of government micromanagement. Businesses face an “unprecedented regulatory agenda” across the nation, she said.

While Congress has enacted relatively few laws, Clark said that government bureaucrats have filled the void to push ideologically driven regulations that impact American industries and impose significant costs on businesses. “We’re talking about a trillion-dollar impact on regulatory costs,” she said about the Biden Administration’s overregulation. “Who pays that? Consumers and businesses.”

Clark called government overreach “a blatant power grab.” For sure, it’s one that has long affected the trucking industry. Though economically deregulated, trucking faces myriad regulations on everything from safety to emissions and, lately, how the trucks of the future will be powered.

The American Trucking Research Institute (ATRI) has researched on the topics of zero-emission vehicles and electric infrastructure challenges. In those studies, and this latest analysis, ATRI used the U.S. Department of Energy’s model to quantify the potential of renewable diesel for lowering the trucking industry’s CO2 emissions.

But the goal of a net-zero global economy, say trucking fleet owners, is unrealistic and often misunderstood. Old Dominion Freight Line has argued that the Paris agreement “is not the same as, and does not require, each individual company in the world to be a net-zero company.”

The LTL carrier, in comments on the issue, noted it operates one of the newest and most efficient fleets in the country, with an average tractor age of 4.5 years, and it highlighted its regular wins in the EPA’s SmartWay program, among other accolades. “There is no single path toward achieving net-zero by 2050,” Old Dominion said in a recent response to a stockholder initiative to lower emissions.

The Amazon effect

Other large companies that use trucks aren’t waiting for shareholders or the government to take action.

Amazon recently rolled out 50 Volvo VNR Electric trucks in California. Amazon described it as its largest deployment of heavy-duty electric vehicles. It adds that a dozen Class 8 vehicles are expected to join the company’s drayage operations at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach this year. The trucks have a range of 275 miles and a gross combination weight of 82,000 pounds, Amazon said.

“We’re proud to launch our largest fleet of electric heavy-duty vehicles yet in California,” says Udit Madan, VP of Worldwide Amazon operations. “Heavy-duty trucking is a particularly difficult area to decarbonize, which makes us all the more excited to have these vehicles on the road today.”

Other federal and state regulatory news

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is now projecting a one-year delay before its May 2025 publication date for the speed limiter notice of proposed rulemaking. FMCSA revived the speed limiter debate in 2022.

In the meantime, FMSCA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) have pushed a final rule to mandate automatic emergency braking systems (AEB) on new trucks from last April to January 2025. The proposed AEB rulemaking, as released last year, would require heavy commercial vehicles with required electronic stability control systems to be equipped with an AEB system.

In another issue to watch, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) and Small Business in Transportation Coalition wants FMCSA to amend regulations related to transparency in brokered freight transactions was on track.

OOIDA is also asking FMCSA to require brokers to provide an electronic copy of each transaction record automatically within 48 hours after the contractual service has been completed. It prevents brokers from including any provision in contracts that requires a motor carrier to waive its rights to access the transaction records.

More rulemakings ahead

FMCSA is proposing changes to its drug and alcohol use and testing rules by increasing the availability of driver violation information in the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse to keep unsafe drivers off the road.

Motor carrier operation of automated driving system-equipped vehicles is a popular topic for state and federal regulators. FMCSA plans to publish a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) in December to amend regulations to ensure the safe introduction of automated driving system-equipped trucks (ADS) onto the nation’s roadways.

After placing several electronic logging devices on its “Revoked Devices” list for failing to meet federal requires, FMCSA plans to publish an NPRM to revise the current electronic logging device regulations.

“Many lessons have been learned by FMCSA staff, state enforcement personnel, ELD vendors, and industry,” says FMCSA. “These lessons can be used to streamline and improve the clarity of the regulatory text and ELD specifications and answer recurring questions. A projected publication date for an NPRM is now July 2025.”

Safety groups lost a round when their attempt to strengthen rear-underride guardrails was rejected by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

NHTSA said the tougher standard is not justifiably feasible for the industry at this time. A final rule from July 2022 upgraded rear guard standards similar to those of Transport Canada. But safety advocates argued that rulemaking didn’t go far enough.