WASHINGTON — If former President Donald Trump wins back the White House in November, The Heritage Foundation hopes he will embrace the organization’s policy playbook, which would reward autonomous trucking while slowing the timeline for electric vehicles (EVs).
Those objectives are outlined in the U.S. Department of Transportation chapter of the 900-page presidential transition “Mandate for Leadership” road map known as Project 2025, published by the conservative Heritage Foundation.
“Despite the department’s tremendous resources, congressional mandates and funding priorities have made it difficult for DOT to focus on the pressing transportation challenges that most directly affect average Americans, such as the high cost of personal automobiles, especially in an era of high inflation; unpredictable and expensive commercial shipping by rail, air, and sea; and infrastructure spending that does not match the types of transportation that most Americans prefer,” the document states.
“Transforming the department to address the varied needs of all Americans more effectively remains a central challenge.”
While there is no guarantee Trump would endorse The Heritage Foundation’s proposals – under criticism from Democrats he recently disavowed any connection to Project 2025 – part of the transformation it advocates involves ensuring that the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issue long-anticipated rules governing autonomous trucks.
“NHTSA’s and FMCSA’s current regulations were written before the advent of automated vehicles and driving systems,” Project 2025 points out.
“Both operating administrations have issued Advance Notices of Proposed Rulemakings that begin the process of updating their regulations to reflect this new technology. However, these regulations have stalled under the Biden Administration, which has chosen to use the department’s tools to get people to take transit and drive electric vehicles instead of helping people to choose the transportation options that suit them best.”
If Trump wins, the document recommends that his administration move on two regulatory initiatives:
FMCSA should work to clarify the regulations to align with DOT’s AV 3.0 guidance, which would allow the drivers to be safely removed from the operations of a commercial motor vehicle.
NHTSA should work to remove regulatory barriers by focusing on updating vehicle standards as well as publishing performance-based rules for the operations of automated vehicles.
Part of AV 3.0, a transportation policy rolled out during Trump’s administration, is a policy that FMCSA regulations “will no longer assume that the driver is always a human or that a human is necessarily present onboard a commercial vehicle during its operation.”
Such a policy “has been critical to the industry’s progress, and we strongly encourage FMCSA to codify this interpretation to reduce potential for misinterpretation,” the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association told FMCSA, in comments filed in response to the agency’s supplemental proposed rulemaking on automated trucks last year.
Daimler Trucks North America and autonomous truck maker Kodiak Robotics, among others, have also urged FMCSA to codify AV 3.0 into its regulations.
Stalling electric trucks
Project 2025 also sides with much of the trucking industry on the impact of the Biden administration’s climate policy and how it effectively mandates a too-quick transition from internal combustion engines (ICE) to EVs.
While the document doesn’t call out trucks specifically, Biden’s climate policy with regard to automobiles parallels that of requirements imposed on heavy-duty truck manufacturers, requiring them to begin rolling out more expensive zero-emission vehicles starting in 2027. Those higher costs most likely would be passed down to the trucking companies and owner-operators who purchase them. Both the American Trucking Associations and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association have pushed back on the policy.
“In pursuit of an anti-fossil fuel climate agenda never approved by Congress, the Biden administration has raised fuel economy requirements to levels that cannot realistically be met by most categories of ICE vehicles,” the Project 2025 document contends.
“The purpose is to force the auto industry to transition away from traditional technologies to the production of electric vehicles and compel Americans to accept costly EVs despite a clear and persistent consumer preference for ICE-powered vehicles.”
A second Trump administration, according to the playbook, should reset standards issued by NHTSA “at reasonable levels that are technologically feasible for ICE automobiles and consistent with an increase in domestic auto production and healthy growth in the sale of safer and more affordable new vehicles.”
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