The Colorado Department of Transportation announced yesterday the release of a draft strategy to remove gas and diesel trucks, including pickup trucks, from Colorado’s roadways.

Governor Jared Polis’ Clean Truck Strategy “to encourage the adoption of zero-emission medium and heavy-duty trucks by 2050” is open for public comment.

In a press release, Executive Director of the Colorado Energy Office Will Toor said, “We have a historic opportunity to support a transition to clean, zero-emission trucks and buses that will reduce harmful air pollution, make progress on our climate goals and save fleets millions of dollars a year in fuel costs,”

Elements of the strategy include:

“A vision statement focused on delivering an “efficient, affordable, and equitable large-scale transition of Colorado’s medium- and heavy-duty vehicle sector to zero-emission technologies,” and “A prioritized set of 34 actions that state agencies will implement to support this transition, including near-term actions in 2022 and 2023, as well as medium-term priorities agencies will initiate as capacity allows or once necessary planning is completed,”

The press release says. “The administration will, by the end of the year, submit a request to set a hearing to the state Air Quality Control Commission to consider adopting rules to reduce pollution from diesel vehicles and to further support the transition to zero-emission trucks and buses.”

These goals are part of an interstate Memorandum of Understanding signed by 15 states and the mayor of Washington, D.C. on July 10, 2020. California recently adopted its Advanced Clean Truck Regulation, which says every new truck sold in California be zero-emission by 2045.

A parallel global MOU calling for ZEV trucks has so far been signed by 15 nations including Austria, Chile, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, Scotland, Turkey Uruguay, Wales and the UK.

The California Air Resources Board says the signatories are “committing to work collaboratively to advance and accelerate the market for electric medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, including large pickup trucks and vans, delivery trucks, box trucks, school and transit buses, and long-haul delivery trucks (big-rigs). The goal is to ensure that 100 percent of all new medium- and heavy-duty vehicle sales be zero emission vehicles by 2050 with an interim target of 30 percent zero-emission vehicle sales by 2030.”

https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/15-states-and-district-columbia-join-forces-accelerate-bus-and-truck-electrification

The state signatories are California, Connecticut, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.

Input from public meetings and stakeholder groups the state produced the Colorado Medium and Heavy-Duty Vehicle Study, upon which the draft strategy is based.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hW_7BhKM4G47FfWHEcVqjCcixPDSau8j/view

The public comment draft of the Clean Truck Strategy is available for review and download here.

The Polis administration, Colorado Energy Office, Colorado Department of Transportation, and Air Pollution Control Division will share the draft Clean Truck Strategy with Coloradans and invite their input. Public webinars will be held March 30 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. and March 31 from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Written comments can be sent to cleantruckstrategy@state.co.us and the public comment period will be open through April 4.

More details can be found at: https://sites.google.com/state.co.us/cotriporgfreight/clean-truck-strategy.