California Releases Sustainable Freight Plan
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On July 29th, California released its long-anticipated Sustainable Freight Action Plan. The full plan can be viewed HERE.
In summary, the Plan outlines the State's long-term vision for the transitioning of the freight system to zero and near-zero emission technologies while simultaneously increasing the efficiency of the system with infrastructure and technology investments and increasing the economic competitiveness of the freight industry.
The Bad
- The Plan calls for data collection and surveys of freight hubs. This data may support potential facility based rules such as "facility emission caps" or facility emission performance targets.
- The Plan calls for new regulations, including a new, 90% lower NOx emission standard for new truck engines and zero-emission purchase requirements for trucks operating in "last mile delivery", forklifts, and plug-in requirements for TRUs.
- Many of the economic goals remain undefined.
- The State continues to lack a comprehensive infrastructure funding plan.
- The Plan contains no Truck and Bus Rule-style "in use" rules requiring retrofit or retirement of existing vehicles.
- The Plan calls for the State to convene a "competitiveness workgroup" to develop economic targets, including development of modeling and tools to proactively assess the economic impact of State policies.
- The Plan does not currently contain direction to develop facility based measures, such as facility caps or performance targets.
We will keep membership up to date as the Plan is implemented over the course of the next several years.
