As More Trucks Fill Our Roads, the EPA Must Act to Save Our Air

“Think about it: What if that was your child, your mother, your aunt, living along that transportation corridor from the port to the warehouse? What if one of the premature deaths policymakers attribute to pollution was your child?”

Dr. Nemmi Cole posed those questions in a conversation with Sierra magazine about the impact of air pollution from heavy-duty truck emissions. Dr. Cole is a researcher at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine.

What if it was your family member indeed?

That is the question regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) need to ask themselves as they consider an updated emissions rule for heavy-duty trucks.

Federal regulators have a moral obligation to use their power to make it easier and healthier for people to breathe.

Pollution from vehicle emissions is a major cause of health issues in communities across America. The diesel exhaust from heavy-duty vehicles like trucks and buses is especially toxic. Beyond asthma and other respiratory illnesses, the pollution particles are so small that they penetrate tissue and get into the bloodstream. From there, these poisons attack the heart, kidneys, liver, and even the brain.

Decades of redlining and environmental racism have disproportionately placed Black and brown communities alongside the highways that serve as America’s major ground shipping routes. The rise of e-commerce has increased the traffic. And it has increased the number of warehouses and distribution centers, which have also sprung up disproportionately in Black and brown neighborhoods.

For example, the Sierra Club found that 79% of people who live within a half mile of a warehouse in the Houston metro area are people of color. One of those people is Cyrus Cormier of Pleasantville, a heavily industrialized neighborhood where most of the residents are Black.

“Pleasantville is right at the intersection of Interstate 10 and Highway 610, which is a major route from the port. It was one of the few places where Black people could buy a home, so we are a predominantly Black community,” said Cormier.

“Our community is in the top 90th to 95th percentile for diesel particulate matter, the 80th to 90th percentiles for asthma rates. It’s in the 95th percentile for low life expectancy, the top 90th to 100th for heart disease when you compare it to the rest of the nation.”

This is what the EPA is here for. Federal regulators have a moral obligation to use their power to make it easier and healthier for people to breathe.

According to the American Lung Association, the estimated benefits of moving to zero-emission trucks and power by 2050 include: $735 billion in public health benefits due to cleaner air; 66,800 fewer premature deaths; 1.75 million fewer asthma attacks; and 8.5 million fewer lost workdays.

Further, the urgency of the climate crisis demands action now. Transportation is the number one source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. Roughly a quarter of those emissions are from trucks and buses, even though they are only 4% of the vehicles on the road. Emissions from trucks are also the fastest growing source of emissions, and trucking is forecast to increase even more in the coming years.

Americans get that this is just common sense. A new poll shows 72% of voters support stronger limits from the agency on heavy-duty vehicle pollution. And it is long overdue. The clean air standards for heavy-duty trucks have not been updated in over 20 years.

States also get the urgency. As of March 2024, 11 states have adopted the Advanced Clean Trucks rule, requiring manufacturers to sell an increasing number of zero-emission trucks and buses. These states are home to more than 20% of the U.S. medium- and heavy-duty vehicles in use. And even more states are expected to adopt these standards this year.

The market can meet the demand. There are already about 150 existing medium- and heavy-duty zero-emission truck models that are commercially available in the U.S. today.

This is a no-brainer for the EPA. A strong emissions standard for heavy-duty trucks that pushes trucking fleets towards electric vehicles is a win for the country, our bodies, and our kids.