Scharfsinn
By Catrina Petersen | The Center Square
California vehicle emissions standards may be coming to Illinois. An Illinois state legislator has introduced a measure that would limit the types of trucks the trucking industry could use.
State Rep. Edgar Gonzalez, Jr., D-Chicago, has introduced House Bill 1634, seeking to have Illinois adopt the vehicle emissions standards of California. The bill has nearly 3,800 opponents and about 540 proponents.
Illinois Trucking Association Executive Director Matt Hart said the Illinois trucking industry delivers 95% of the manufactured freight in the state.
The Pennsylvania Motor Truck Association and the California Trucking Association have filed lawsuits against similar legislation. Hart said they expect to sue in Illinois if Gonzalez’s bill becomes law.
“You cannot have a state submit itself and its laws and policies to another state agency that is over 2,000 miles away,” Hart said.
According to the bill, each time California changes its vehicle emissions standards, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has six months to amend Illinois rules established by the California EPA.
“Anything you do to the trucking industry, any time you increase our costs, or any time you take away our ability to deliver, that’s going to impact every single citizen in the state of Illinois,” Hart said.
Hart said most people aren’t aware that the trucking industry has reduced carbon emissions by 98% over the last three decades.
“We will get there, and our industry is committed to closing that 2% gap but we need to do it over time and we need to do it with technology that actually exists … so that we can continue to deliver the goods,” he said.
Read more here.
Leave a Reply