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This story appears in the Nov. 1 print edition of Transport Topics.

The Obama administration last week proposed the first-ever regulations to set commercial truck fuel-efficiency and carbon-emission standards.

The proposal would cut emissions from large trucks by 7% to 20% by 2017 depending on the size and of the truck and the way it is used, a departure from passenger automobile fuel-economy regulations.

The proposal was praised last week by a disparate collection of officials that included the trucking industry, truck manufacturers and environmentalists.

The regulation, mandated by President Obama in May, will be made final by July 2011 and go into effect for the 2014 and 2017 model years, administration officials said.

The government is putting forward “a strong and comprehensive national program that will over-see fuel-efficiency standards for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, whether pickups, vans, buses or semi-trucks,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Oct. 25.

“A clear national standard will lead to more fuel-efficient vehicles and help lower fuel costs for drivers,” Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said.

“The new standards could save 500 million barrels of oil, cut greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 250 metric tons over the life of the model years 2014-2018 vehicles and provide more than $35 billion in net benefits to truckers,” LaHood said.

The increase in efficiency, Jackson said, could bring as much as $74,000 in savings per vehicle to fleets over the life of a truck.

This potential for savings was one of the key factors in winning the support of trucking’s largest interest group — American Trucking Associations.

“This is probably the only regulation, at least from EPA, that I’ve seen in doing this line of work over the last 20 years, that is actually going to be getting us something back in return,” said Glen Kedzie, ATA’s environmental counsel. “Everything else, we go to the bank and write the checks, but this rule we’re writing a check up front certainly, but we’re going to be seeing checks come back to us and put into our bank accounts.”

Randy Mullett, vice president of government relations for Con-way Inc., told Transport Topics the two agencies have “done a good job of involving all the stakeholders, being sensitive and not disrupting an industry, letting us ease into it by using existing technologies and giving a fairly long window for the R&D that’s going to be necessary for the engine components.”

While “there will be some costs, I anticipate we’re going to get some real benefits in fuel economy,” Mullett said.

The regulations, proposed jointly by EPA and DOT’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, will regulate grams of carbon dioxide per ton-mile and gallons of fuel per ton-mile, rather than simply miles per gallon, the basis for automobile standards.

Industry officials had previously said they feared the standards would be unmanageable if set in miles per gallon, since similar trucks perform very different tasks.

The agencies proposed dividing heavy-duty trucks into nine categories based on size — Class 7, Class 8 day cab and Class 8 sleeper — and the height of the roof: low, mid-height and high.

Based on the categories, the limits for CO2 emissions in 2014 will range from 65 grams per ton-mile for a low-roof Class 8 sleeper to 118 grams for a high-roof Class 7 day cab, and the fuel efficiency marks will range from 6.3 gallons per 1,000 ton-miles at the low end to 11.6 gallons at the high end.

For the 2017 model year, the target range tightens to 64 to 116 grams and 6.3 to 11.4 gallons respectively, according to EPA and NHTSA documents.

The agencies estimated that trucks in model years 2010-2013 would travel 100 miles on 20.2 gallons of diesel, the equivalent of 4.95 miles per gallon. Under the proposal, in 2014 the average rises to the equivalent of 5.41 miles per gallon and in 2017, the nation’s trucks should get roughly 5.59 miles per gallon, based on Transport Topics’ calculations.

Anthony Greszler, vice president of advanced engineering for Volvo Powertrain, told TT that manufacturers expected to be able to meet the proposed standards without major changes to trucks and engines.

“Assuming that the details don’t drive us to do something beyond what the nominal targets appear to be, my sense is that we will accelerate some of the fuel-efficiency improvements that we have already planned, but there won’t be dramatic changes in either in 2014 and 2017,” Greszler said.

Brian Burton, director of compliance and regulatory affairs for Daimler Trucks North America, said the targets “appear to be feasible for 2014,” but said “engines will have to change to meet the tightened standards for 2017.”

“Although the 2017 standards represent a 2% to 4% decrease in CO2 emissions from the 2014 standards, the improvements necessary . . . are significant,” he said, adding that this will add “cost and complexity.”

Dave McKenna, director of powertrain sales and marketing for Mack Trucks Inc., said OEMs are “close enough today that we can just tweak existing technology for 2014 — that is within our grasp.”

However, McKenna said he believed that meeting the 2017 standard could take “a significant investment in time, hardware and money.”

McKenna added that Mack was displeased that the agencies were using 2010 as the baseline, since truck makers already have increased efficiency significantly between 2009 and 2010.

“We don’t get so much as a thank-you note or a Christmas card” from the government for that accomplishment, he said.

While Greszler said there could be some increases ahead in cost and complexity, EPA and NHTSA estimated that the cost of a truck would only rise by about $5,900 to meet the 2017 standards.

A senior NHTSA official said the rule was designed to provide “really quick payback” in fuel savings.

Kedzie said that ATA believed fleets’ investments to meet the standards could be recouped in roughly 12 to 24 months.

Much of the proposal looks at aerodynamics, more efficient tires and idle-reducing technologies to cut carbon emissions, EPA’s Jackson said.

Greszler said that complying with the new rules was likely to involve adoption of EPA’s voluntary emissions program SmartWay, and that fleets that have already been certified may not see tremendous gains in efficiency.

Trucking industry statements praising the regulation were matched by favorable comments from environmental groups.

ATA is “encouraged that the proposal takes into account the wide diversity of operations within our industry and the need to build flexibility into the rulemaking process,” federation President Bill Graves stated.

Rich Freeland, president of Cummins Inc.’s engine business, said the rules would offer a “clear direction and provide incentives to companies that create innovative technologies.”

Daniel Ustian, Navistar Inc. chairman and CEO, said that while it was “too soon to evaluate all elements of the proposed regulations,” the company was committed to working with EPA and NHTSA.

Don Anair, a senior analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the rules will “provide truckers with clean, fuel-saving technology that would save them money at the pump . . . [while] all Americans would benefit from cleaner air and less dependence on oil.”

Luke Tonachel, a vehicles analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the administration “did the right thing by encouraging the creation of these standards,” and called on the agencies to pursue even more dramatic reductions.