New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced Monday that as part of the state’s effort to cut carbon emissions, it has become the third state to adopt rules based on California’s Advanced Clean Truck (ACT) regulations, which require truck manufacturers to meet increasing electric vehicle sales targets.

The rules require manufacturers of vehicles weighing more than 8,500 pounds to sell an increasing number of electric trucks after 2025, so that by 2035, they account for 55% of class 2b and 3 trucks, 75% of Class 4 to 8 trucks and 40% of truck tractor sales.

ACT also requires manufacturers to provide annual sales reports to the state and requires “large entities including retailers, manufacturers and government agencies” to file a one-time report on their truck fleets. That information will provide a foundation on which state officials can create plans for increasing the use of electric trucks in the future.

The penalties for failure to comply with the fleet reporting requirements start with $2,000 for the first offense, rising to $30,000 for the fourth and each subsequent offense.

New Jersey’s adoption of the rules, which originated in California and were first enacted there in June 2020, follows similar adoptions in Oregon on Nov. 17 and Washington on Nov. 30, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. (See Enviros, Industry Urge Oregon’s Swift Adoption of Clean Truck Rules.)

Hayley Berliner, clean energy advocate with Environment New Jersey, called the adoption “a great holiday gift” from Gov. Phil Murphy.

“To reach our climate goals, and make our communities healthier, we need to move to an all-electric future,” she said. “The Advanced Clean Truck rule is a huge step in that direction.”

Health vs. Expense

The adoption of the rules follows months of public hearings, with vigorous support from environmentalists, who argued that the rules are essential to cutting carbon emissions. A smaller, but equally vehement, opposition from business and truck manufacturing groups argued that the rules are too aggressive and that neither the state’s trucking sector nor charging infrastructure and incentive programs are ready to handle a mandated increase in sales. (See NJ Electric Truck Rules Face Many Questions.)

Kathy Harris, clean vehicles and fuels advocate for NRDC, said New Jersey will see a “see a myriad of health, climate and economic benefits with the implementation of the ACT rule.”

“With the adoption of the ACT rule, New Jersey’s medium- and heavy-duty [MHD] truck market will be shifted away from using dirty fossil fuels to zero-emission technology,” she said.

But Allen Schaeffer, executive director of the Diesel Technology Forum, said the state’s move would harm and slow down the effort to cut emissions.

“This means higher costs for new trucks with fewer vehicle choices,” Schaeffer said. “They have also effectively disadvantaged other available and more affordable options like the use of low-carbon renewable biodiesel fuels that could be doing more to lower GHG emissions right now.”

He added that “even if the most optimistic of all policy, funding, technology and infrastructure scenarios fall into place, the time frame for zero-emission heavy-duty vehicles to make up a majority percentage of the commercial trucks on New Jersey roads and streets is going to be measured in decades, not years.”

Ray Cantor, a vice president at New Jersey Business & Industry Association (NJBIA), one of New Jersey’s largest business groups, said it remains opposed to the rules, in part because the costs of embracing them will be too high for trucking companies.

Disproportionate Pollution

Transportation accounts for 42% of carbon emissions in New Jersey, and increasing the number of EVs on state roads is key to Murphy’s plan of cutting New Jersey’s carbon emissions by 80% of 2006 levels by 2050. The state’s master plan, released in 2019, assumes that 75% of medium-duty trucks and 50% of heavy-duty trucks will be electric by 2050.

“Transportation emissions remain the largest source of climate pollution in New Jersey, which disproportionately impair the air quality and public health in underserved communities,” DEP Commissioner Shawn LaTourette said in a statement announcing the enactment of the rules. He said that although MHD trucks and buses account for only 4% of all vehicles on the road, they make up nearly 25% of transportation-sector greenhouse gas emissions.

There are few electric trucks on New Jersey’s roads despite the state’s efforts to ramp up their use by offering incentives and seeking to increase the number of available heavy-duty chargers. The New Jersey Economic Development Authority said in October, for example, that applications in the first phase of its New Jersey Zero Emission Incentive Program would put 148 vehicles on the road for the $15 million incentives available. (See ‘Last-mile’ Deliveries Drive Demand for NJ Truck Incentives.) That’s a tiny number compared to the 220,000 Class 3 and above trucks in the state, as estimated in a report compiled by the NRDC.

Truckers in New Jersey, like those around the nation, cite the lack of MHD charging sites as a key obstacle to greater use of electric trucks. Other barriers include the short range of existing electric trucks — only up to around 250 miles — and the high cost of the vehicles. (See Port NY-NJ Cites ‘Hurdles’ to Employing EV Trucks.)

Electric trucks supporters, in response, say that the technology, and selection of available trucks, is improving, and that eventually they can be cheaper because of lower maintenance and fuel costs. (See NRDC Report Predicts a Decline in NJ’s EV Truck Costs.)

Raising EV Truck Sales

Under the ACT rules, manufacturers accrue “deficits” based on their sales in the state that are neither zero-emission nor near-zero-emission vehicles. The calculation of deficits is based on factors including the model year, the weight class group and whether a vehicle is considered a tractor.

To follow the law, the manufacturer must accrue credits that are equal to or exceed the value of deficits it accrues in a particular year. Credits will be awarded for the sale of a vehicle in New Jersey that is zero emissions or near zero emissions, with the value of the credits based on the weight class.

Each year after 2025 through 2035, the value of deficits increases, based on sales percentages set out in the rules, forcing the manufacture to sell more EVs to remain in balance with deficits or to otherwise obtain credits.

Still, for all their support for the law, both NRDC and Environment New Jersey said the law is just the first step needed to cut emissions in the state.

“Cleaning up tailpipe pollution from thousands of trucks on New Jersey’s roads is one of the best ways to improve the health of communities from Newark to Cape May,” NRDC’s Harris said. “The ACT rule does not require zero-emission trucks or limit the use of dirtier trucks across the state, so further policies are needed to better address the pressing needs in those impacted communities.”