Court Battle Erupts over Truck Trailers and GHG/MPG Rule
Court filings have begun to pile up that may ultimately determine the fate of the trailer-related provision within the federal Phase 2 Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Fuel Efficiency Standards.
On Oct. 12, the Environmental Defense Fund and a coalition of other environmental and public health groups formally requested that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reject what they regard as the “eleventh-hour stay” of the trailer provisions filed as a motion with the court by the Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association on the 25th of last month.
In its statement of intervenor opposition asking the court to deny TTMA’s motion for stay of the Phase 2 trailer provision, EDF argues in part that “TTMA attempts to artificially divide the tractor from the trailer to claim that TTMA’s members cannot be regulated directly because they are not manufacturers of motor vehicles.”
In addition, EDF contends in its brief that “TTMA has likewise failed to demonstrate that its members will be irreparably harmed absent a stay of standards that simply require manufacturers to equip more of their trailers with widely used technologies that deliver fuel savings.” It also argues that TTMA’s motion is “littered with contradictions and belied by its remarkable eleven-month delay in seeking a judicial stay.”
The Phase 2 GHG/MPG rules are set to require compliance starting in Jan. 2018, which explains TTMA’s desire to secure a stay of the trailer provision. In addition, TTMA filed a lawsuit back in Dec. 2016 asking the D.C. Circuit to overturn the trailer portion of the Phase 2 rule. EDF and a coalition of public health and environmental groups are also intervenors in that case, along with the California Air Resources Board and a group of seven states (Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington). …Read the rest of this story
