‘Diesel death zones’ are making it harder for many in NC to breathe
Here in North Carolina, pollution from heavy-duty vehicles — the truck delivering your package, the school bus picking up your kids, the 18-wheeler passing you on the highway — is creating “diesel death zones.”
Physicians coined this label because residents living near ports, warehouses and busy roads are exposed to such high rates of pollution that asthma rates and cancer risks are drastically elevated. More than 45 million people in the U.S. live within 300 feet of a major roadway or transportation facility. This pollution disproportionately impacts communities of color, which are exposed to 25% more fine particulate pollution than white populations.
Heavy duty vehicles are major contributors to nitrogen oxide emissions, a potent precursor to ground-level ozone and fine particulate matter. Eliminating emissions from medium- and heavy-duty vehicles is essential for desperately needed cleaner air and a safer climate.
States and the Environmental Protection Agency are poised to take action. Several states already adopted strong standards requiring manufacturers to produce zero-emission trucks and buses while cleaning up fossil fuel vehicles. Others, including North Carolina, are evaluating adoption. After two decades of inaction, the EPA is considering clean truck standards to regulate smog- and soot-forming nitrogen oxide emissions and improve greenhouse gas emission standards for trucks.
In North Carolina, these standards have strong support. Major businesses are asking Gov. Roy Cooper to adopt these standards.
Despite that these safeguards will protect millions of people, and despite commitments to cleaner vehicles, truck manufacturers are hiding behind their industry trade group, the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association (EMA), to block them.
While EMA pushes for more pollution, its members are touting sustainability. Volvo says it will try to make 50% of its heavy-duty truck sales electric by 2030. Daimler boasts about investments in truck charging infrastructure and a million miles driven by its electric Freightliners. Navistar touts the ability of its electric school buses to slash greenhouse gasses.
The EMA and member companies are trying to block pollution safeguards for heavy-duty trucks. EMA testified against the EPA’s stronger clean truck standards, while running a disinformation campaign called “CleanTruckFacts” that appears to support clean trucks but is actually pushing to weaken the rule.
After public pressure, the EMA dropped a lawsuit to delay the Heavy-Duty Omnibus (HDO) rule — a lifesaving clean truck regulation. In North Carolina, where the state may adopt the HDO rule and other clean truck safeguards, these technologically proven, cost-effective rules would avoid nearly 500 premature deaths and over 400 hospitalizations and ER visits by 2050.
Why haven’t self-titled sustainable automakers like Volvo, Daimler and Navistar spoken out against EMA’s testimony against EPA clean truck standards or EMA’s dangerous misinformation campaign? Their silence shows their true colors: public health be damned--they won’t clean up their products unless state and federal safeguards force them to.
Until Volvo, Daimler, Navistar and the many other companies who tout sustainability distance themselves from EMA and support these safeguards, their claims of sustainability are nothing more than greenwashing.
Rebekah Whilden is the Deputy Director of Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All campaign. She lives in Charlotte.
