By Magdalena Garncarz
Vice President, Government Affairs

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) took a first step toward providing much-needed relief to businesses when it announced on October 18 that it will delay implementation of the Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) and Heavy-Duty Omnibus (HDO) regulations.

MassDEP will delay the implementation of the HDO regulation by one year until Model Year 2026, and exercise limited enforcement discretion for snowplowing, snow removal, and street sweeping vehicles under the ACT rule for Model Years 2025 and 2026. While these decisions are positive, they also highlight the fact that the electric heavy-duty truck industry still faces significant challenges in scaling to meet the growing demand that the ACT rule would impose.

The HDO regulation imposes strict emissions standards on heavy-duty engines. The ACT rule requires manufacturers to sell an increasing percentage of zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs). Both were originally set to take effect in Model Year 2025, with a planned implementation date of January 1, 2025.

While these rules are well intentioned, with the goal of reducing emissions and combating climate change, the transition cannot happen overnight. Companies in industries like construction, logistics, waste management, and agriculture depend on trucks that can handle the demanding nature of their work, including long hours and long ranges, heavy loads, and rugged conditions.

The charging infrastructure for electric trucks is still underdeveloped, and the electric truck technology for many heavy-duty applications isn’t available in sufficient volume. Moreover, the transition to zero-emission trucks would create an undue burden on businesses that need to replace their fleets quickly, but often cannot afford the high upfront costs of electric trucks—if they are even available in the first place.

It’s likely that businesses would hang on to their older, higher emissions emitting vehicles for longer as they wait for clean truck technology to catch up and for the price to come down. This would, unfortunately, result in more pollution from medium-and-heavy-duty trucks being produced in the short term.

A one-year delay in the HDO rule helps businesses by giving them more time to adapt, but it is not enough to allow the electric truck market to grow and mature to meet the demand that these rules would create. Businesses that rely on medium- and heavy-duty trucks need more time to integrate clean technologies and to have the certainty that the vehicles they need will be available at a price they can afford.

MassDEP’s decision to grant limited enforcement discretion for snowplowing, snow removal, and street-sweeping vehicles for municipalities and state agencies is a step in the right direction for public safety. This exemption will ensure that local governments have the flexibility to maintain essential services during storm events without being forced to purchase vehicles that are not yet available or appropriate for their needs.

But these exemptions do not provide similar relief for private sector businesses. Many businesses—especially those in construction, landscaping, and logistics—rely on vocational trucks that perform tasks similar to those of snowplows and street sweepers. These trucks are essential for the day-to-day operations of businesses, and companies face the same challenges in finding available, affordable, and practical clean vehicle options.

While AIM is grateful to MassDEP for recognizing the challenges that businesses face and for delaying the HDO rule until 2026, the problems of availability, cost, and infrastructure that are preventing businesses from fully adopting electric heavy-duty trucks will be difficult to solve in one year. The industry needs more time to scale up, and we need to see a broader commitment to building out charging networks and providing financial incentives to help businesses transition without facing undue financial strain.

We are hopeful that over the next year, we can continue to work collaboratively with MassDEP and other stakeholders to find solutions that better align with the current state of clean-truck technology. This includes ensuring that all industries—both public and private—have access to the support and flexibility they need to transition to a cleaner, more sustainable fleet of vehicles. Our goal is to find a path forward to a successful transition to clean transportation, while balancing the demands of industries that rely on heavy-duty trucks to move goods, provide services, and keep our state’s economy running.