The ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles have partnered with the South Coast Air Quality Management District on a grant program that will give dozens of goods-hauling drivers as much as $100,000 each to help them buy low-emission, natural gas–powered heavy-duty trucks. Each organization is providing $2 million to the Early Adopter Truck Incentive Program, supplementing an $8 million CEC grant. Applicants must be part of the ports’ existing truck registry and must agree to replace their existing older, dirtier trucks.
CARB has adopted new emissions tracking software that will help regulators identify medium- and heavy-duty trucks with excess NOx and greenhouse gas emissions. With the Real Emissions Assessment Logging (REAL) program, one of the new amendments to onboard diagnostic (OBD) regulations, the OBD system will collect and store NOx emissions data on medium- and heavy-duty diesel vehicles starting with model year 2022. CARB currently requires OBD systems to collect similar data about pollutants from 2019 and newer light- and medium-duty vehicles.
With 100 percent compliance and decreasing levels of emissions, the final cap-and-trade auction of 2018 raised more than $813 million for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction fund. All 78,825,717 current allowances sold for $15.31 each, 78 cents more than the price floor and 26 cents more than the price for the August auction. Also, all 9,401,500 future vintage allowances sold for $15.33 each, 80 cents more than the price floor. The price floor for all allowances will increase in 2019. More than 60 approved bidders, including major petroleum companies, utilities, public agencies, and finance companies, participated.
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler launched the Cleaner Trucks Initiative (CTI) to decrease NOx emissions from on-highway heavy-duty trucks and engines. He said the CTI will include future rules to update the 2001 NOx standard while also streamlining compliance and certification requirements.