Predicting what will happen to 2027 Phase 3 Greenhouse Emissions Regulations is nearly impossible with Donald Trump returning to the White House.
Photo: Canva-Pexels-Jack Roberts
My editor asked for a “look ahead” at trucking in 2025.
And I hate doing these…
Because the best I can do – most years – is take an educated guess at what I think might happen over the next 12 months.
But predicting the future is always tricky. There are always surprises. And that’s during a fairly calm, normal year.
But next year is shaping up to be anything but calm.
Or normal.
That’s because predicting what is going to happen in 2025 is made far more problematic by the reelection of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States.
On one hand, Trump’s reelection seems to have given a sense of optimism to the U.S. trucking industry. There are high hopes that his policies will inject new life into the sluggish freight market and create a better business climate the transportation industry as a whole.
On the other hand, many words have been used to describe Trump since he decided to enter public life back in 2015.
Consistent and predictable are not two of those words.
Still, Trump’s return to the White House combined with trucking’s pushback against Phase 3 Greenhouse Gas emissions regulations in 2027 suggests changes could be coming on that front.
A Muddled Emissions Picture
Now, let’s be clear: Presidents don’t rule by decree.
As much as it would delight his base, Trump is not going to be able to wave his hand and make emissions regulations vanish.
He can do real damage to them on the federal level of course.
Given his past actions, I think it’s safe to assume that Trump will appoint a climate change denier to the agency.
At the very least, this person will most likely slow-walk the 2027 emissions agenda forward, weakening it wherever they can.
But state agencies, like the hated California Air Resource Board (CARB) will likely ignore Trump and continue to do as they please.
In fact, I won’t be surprised if they dig their heels in and fight even harder for strict emissions regulations in response to hostility for their agenda on the federal level.
Trump seems to inspire that sort of response in people and organizations that don’t like him.
Truck OEMs will mostly ignore Trump as well.
Their reasons for doing so won’t be political in nature, though. They’ll be based on business and regulatory realities that reach far beyond the borders of the United States.
These are global corporations that have invested billions of dollars in new, zero-emission powertrain technologies.
And remember, those ZEV technologies are still going to be mandated by law all in other developed nations all over the world.
Truck OEMs aren’t going to shrug their shoulders and go back to building pre-2010 diesel trucks for four years for one country. Even for a country that is the largest truck market in the world.
And End for Infrastructure Spending?
Another point is infrastructure related to zero-emission vehicles. The Biden administration made massive investments in infrastructure funding. And those include significant funding for EV and hydrogen infrastructure development.
Will Trump and the Republicans seek to curtail funding those projects?
If Project 2025 is any indication, there will be some sort of coordinated effort by Republicans to kill any government programs even faintly associated with the hated “Green New Deal.”
But again – it’s hard to say. Doing so would make his base happy. But there are a hell of a lot of jobs and business being generated by those projects. But, if Trump’s threats on tariffs are any indication, he may just plow ahead and gut Biden’s Build it Back Better Act anyway. And to hell with the consequences.
On the other hand, Trump is now surrounded by a bunch of billionaire “advisors” who are die-hard climate change believers. And in the case of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, they’ve made vast fortunes providing products and services based on combating and mitigating climate change.
It’s not outside the realm of possibility to think that these billionaires might sway Trump over to their way of thinking when it comes to climate change and EVs.
I don’t think that’s likely.
But who knows?
Almost nothing will surprise me at this point.
Uncertainty is the Only Certainty
Uncertainty is never a good thing for a business or an industry.
And there is a whole lot of uncertainty in trucking right now.
This industry knows tough, draconian emissions regulations are set to become law a mere two years from now.
And this industry also knows that the current powertrain solutions introduced to meet those upcoming regulations are prohibitively expensive to purchase. They are also more expensive to operate than diesel trucks. They do not have anywhere near the infrastructure required for large-scale deployment. And they simply do not work at all in long-haul applications.
As I’ve noted before, this is a recipe for economic disaster.
What the trucking industry needs now is for some kind of mediated agreement with the EPA and CARB. We need to find middle-ground solutions that will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions while allowing the unimpeded movement of freight.
To my mind, this should include the inclusion of renewable natural gas and renewable diesel as certified clean fuels. It should also include funding to boost the production, availability and infrastructure needed to make those fuels widely available to fleets on a national/international scale.
Heading into the Fall of last year, I was reasonably optimistic some new deal along those lines might be cut in 2025.
Now?
Like I said: Who knows?
And I guess that’s what I’m telling you: I think when it comes to 2027 Phase 3 Greenhouse Gas regulations, the trucking industry is in for a lot of confusion this coming year.
I wish that weren’t the case.
But that’s what I see peering into the 2025 crystal ball right now.
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