EPA on Monday proposed allowing California to implement an inspection and maintenance rule for heavy-duty vehicles registered in the state, a measure aimed at reducing smog-forming pollutants.
But the agency said it will not allow the state to impose any requirements on trucks that are registered in other states or from Mexico and Canada.
“California was not, and has never been, duly elected by the American people to run our great country,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a statement. “The state’s power grab knows no bounds. EPA will not allow California to violate federal law, and we will not sit idly by while, in the name of climate change, they raise the cost of living on all Americans who rely on truck drivers and the products they deliver across the country.”
Background: The California Air Resources Board in 2021 adopted a rule boosting inspection and maintenance requirements for pollution control systems on heavy-duty trucks, and submitted it to EPA for approval in 2022. Mobile sources — and, by an outsize amount, heavy-duty trucks — represent one of the biggest remaining sources of smog precursors in California.
