I’ll be the first to admit I cheered when I learned the California Air Resources Board (CARB) had decided to drop its pursuit of an EPA waiver for the Advanced Clean Fleets scheme. I cheered not because I believe climate change is a hoax but because pushing it forward now would have been a ruinous mistake.

Despite the industry’s education campaigns and lobby efforts, I doubt very much that CARB simply came to its senses and realized the goal was technologically unachievable. Walking back the waiver request was, I think, an admission that it would never have made it past President Trump’s EPA.

Trump has consistently cast doubt on scientific consensus about climate change.

The move won’t have much of an impact in Canada, and frankly the timeline for requiring heavy trucks operating in California to transition to some zero-emission iteration, 2042, makes ACF a no-so-pressing concern for us.

However, CARB’s move opens the door to speculation on the fate of some of the other rules slated to come into effect during Trump’s second term, such as CARB’s Advanced Clean Truck zero-emission sales mandate, and Omnibus Low NOx regulations (ACT II rule).

During his campaign, Trump pledged to end electric vehicle mandates. Trump has also indicated his EPA nominee, Lee Zeldin, will “ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions.”

It seems possible, even likely, Zeldin will take steps to shelve some of the more onerous and ill-conceived rules at least until 2029 — or maybe longer if Republicans maintain control of Congress and the White House at that time.

In fact, the White House announced Monday following his inauguration that President Trump will withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement. And following that move, will probably cancel or suspend many of the other emissions reductions commitments made previously.

Where does this leave Canada?

In short: in limbo, or maybe purgatory.   

Canada’s emissions rules have historically aligned with American emissions rules. It’s a practical way of going about it. Canada doesn’t have the economic clout to demand the U.S.-based truck and engine makers comply with uniquely Canadian emissions rules. And that’s as it should be given our proximity to — and participation in — the North American transportation market. No argument there.

But if additional changes are forthcoming to the EPA’s heavy-truck emissions rules, Canada will be out on a limb.

CTA concerns

A couple of weeks after Trump’s election victory, the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) expressed its concern over the fate of the next round of U.S. emissions rules — GHG Phase 3, EPA27 and beyond.

According to CTA, officials with Environment and Climate Change Canada said during stakeholder briefings in October, Canada intends to, “broadly align with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) new emission regulations,” which have come under fire from truck and engine makers as being operationally and commercially infeasible.

But now, just days after President Trump’s inauguration, that may be a moot point. 

“Any decisions to proceed unilaterally in the absence of U.S EPA GHG rules remaining in place, would put Canadian trucking operators and equipment manufacturers at a significant competitive disadvantage,” noted CTA president, Stephen Laskowski. “Canada needs to work with the Trump administration to understand how it will approach heavy-duty truck emission regulation in the U.S.”

With parliament now prorogued, and seemingly little chance of getting any new regulations passed before an election is called, or more likely forced, we could be heading for a period of some uncertainty. Technically, the regulations passed previously would remain in force, but the mechanism to comply with them may evaporate if the incoming administration decides to strike down some of the rules. The OEMs are unlikely to build us the trucks our rules require.

The future of electrification

With CARB’s Advanced Clean Fleets rule now in the can, where it belongs, industry has an opportunity to reassess where it’s headed with electrification. The pressure to push headlong into this uncharted territory has eased, thankfully.

Canada’s plan to electrify the commercial fleet was woefully inadequate, and we remain totally unprepared to accommodate fleets of electric trucks. There was interest, but here in Ontario, the energy producer, Ontario Power Generation, could not always meet the demand.   

I read a mainstream media story in the fall about a school board in Ontario that wanted to buy 50 electric school buses. The electric utility kyboshed the plan because it could not provide the infrastructure or the service. The school board cancelled the order.  

And truthfully, that’s the problem. We have the trucks; though limited in range and payload, they work really well in some applications. Honestly, I think any opportunity we have to replace a diesel with a zero-emission vehicle is one we should fully exploit.

Canadian grid not ready

That said, widespread electrification isn’t going to happen anytime soon, despite the best- but ill-intentioned efforts of our regulators.

In a recent interview with the Financial Post, the president of SNC-Lavalin’s nuclear division, Joe St. Julian, said in order to meet the obligations of our 2050 net-zero emission targets, Canada will have to triple its current power generation capabilities.

“That basically means that over the next 27 years, Canada has to build out generating capacity three times its current base. The current base took 150 years to build,” he said, adding, “Merely replacing Canada’s existing fossil fuel-based electricity with clean energy sources within the next decade would require building the equivalent of 23 major hydro projects, such as British Columbia’s Site C project, or 2.3 large-scale nuclear power plants like Ontario’s Bruce Power.”

It’s probably not such a bad thing that Trump handed the ACF rule back to CARB. It will buy the industry some time to figure out how to do this responsibly and practically. No fleet, forced to or not, could commercially integrate a half-million-dollar electric truck into its operations. And even if they could, they probably couldn’t get the electricity to power the thing.

Unrealistic and politically motivated deadlines serve nobody well.