The trucking and shipping industries will soon be subject to extensive environmental regulation under the California Sustainable Freight Action Plan (Plan). The state government and various agencies have joined together to submit a draft regulation. The Plan is designed to implement zero-emission technologies for use in transportation mechanisms in the state’s trucking and shipping industries by the year 2050. The Plan is critical in helping the state meet its 2030 targets for emission reduction. These targets call for a decrease in harmful emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2030.
The Plan was drafted pursuant to an Executive Order issued by Governor Brown, which requires various state agencies, including the California Transportation Agency and the California Environmental Protection Agency to develop an environmentally sustainable plan for freight transportation by July, 2016. One of the departments that took part in this endeavor was the California Air Resources Board, which already created and put into effect a comparable zero-emission plan for passenger vehicles.
The elimination of pollution from the vast transport system in the state is considered vital to the overall goal of improving air quality and reducing the harmful effects of carbon emissions. At the same time, the Plan seeks to promote the growth and efficiency of the state’s freight transport system, which must support an expanding population and increased market competition.
The goals of the Plan include: (i) maintaining and preserving the aging roadway and bridge systems, (ii) increasing system capacity to support increased freight volume, (iii) decreasing exposure to air toxins found in diesel equipment, and (iv) combatting climate change by meeting established goals for greenhouse gas emission reductions, which entails, among other things, decreasing petroleum use by 50 percent and expanding the use of power from renewable sources by 50 percent.
The comment period for the draft Plan closed on July 6, 2016.
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