LOS ANGELES — President Donald Trump’s policies could threaten many big green energy projects in the coming years, but his election has already dealt a big blow to an ambitious California effort to replace thousands of diesel-fueled trucks with battery-powered semis.
The California plan, which has been closely watched by other states and countries, was meant to take a big leap forward last year, with a requirement that some of the more than 30,000 trucks that move cargo in and out of ports start using semis that don’t emit carbon dioxide.
But after Trump was elected, California regulators withdrew their plan, which required a federal waiver that the new administration, which is closely aligned with the oil industry, would most likely have rejected. That leaves the state unable to force trucking businesses to clean up their fleets. It was a big setback for the state, which has long been allowed to have tailpipe emission rules that are stricter than federal standards because of California’s infamous smog.
Some transportation experts said that even before Trump’s election, California’s effort had problems. The batteries that power electric trucks are too expensive. They take too long to charge. And there aren’t enough places to plug the trucks in.
“It was excessively ambitious,” said Daniel Sperling, a professor at the University of California, Davis, who specializes in sustainable transportation, referring to the program that made truckers buy green rigs.
California officials insist that their effort is not doomed, and say they will keep it alive with other rules and by providing truckers incentives to go electric.
“We know we have a lot of work to do, but we also have tools to accomplish this,” said Liane M. Randolph, chair of the California Air Resources Board, the state body that sets clean air standards, at the ceremonial opening of a truck charging station near the Port of Long Beach in January.
California requires truck manufacturers to sell an increasing number of zero-emissions heavy trucks in the state. This rule is more protected from any challenge by the Trump administration. In an agreement struck after the rule was introduced, the manufacturers committed to comply with its requirements regardless of the outcome of any future litigation, and California agreed to soften the rule.
In theory, California’s plans to first electrify port trucks had a lot going for it. Fumes from such vehicles contribute to well-documented health problems such as childhood asthma in neighborhoods near the ports and warehouses. Heavy-duty transportation in California is estimated to emit as much carbon dioxide, the main cause of climate change, annually as New Zealand.
Also, these trucks travel distances that battery-powered semis can handle on one charge, roughly 200 miles. The hope was that — with the right regulatory sticks and carrots — carriers, truck manufacturers, charging companies and utilities would create an electric trucking network that would serve as a springboard for a broader effort to remove diesel rigs from the state by 2045.
Rudy Diaz, CEO of Hight Logistics, a port trucking company in Long Beach with 20 electric semis and chargers in its yard, said he, too, had achieved significant cost savings. But now that port truckers aren’t required to buy green vehicles, he fears that competitors deploying much cheaper diesel vehicles will have an advantage.
“It makes me nervous — we invested in this infrastructure and these new trucks hoping that the waiver will pass,” he said, referring to the EPA waiver.