Eleven days after announcing an agreement on fuel-economy standards for model year 2017-2025 cars and light trucks, President Obama on Tuesday announced the first-ever fuel-economy standards for work trucks, buses and other heavy-duty vehicles. The rules, which cover the 2014-2018 model years, require big-rigs to achieve up to a 20 percent reduction in fuel consumption and greenhouse-gas emissions by model year 2018, heavy-duty pickups and vans up to a 15 percent reduction, and vocational vehicles – including delivery trucks, buses and garbage trucks – up to a 10 percent reduction.
The standards will save American businesses who operate and own the commercial vehicles about $50 billion in fuel costs over the life of the program, the White House said in a statement. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) developed the standards in close coordination with company representatives that met with the President Tuesday as well as other stakeholders, following requests from companies to develop this program. “While we were working to improve the efficiency of cars and light-duty trucks, something interesting happened,” Obama said in the statement. “We started getting letters asking that we do the same for medium and heavy-duty trucks. They were from the people who build, buy and drive these trucks. And today, I’m proud to have the support of these companies as we announce the first-ever national policy to increase fuel efficiency and decrease greenhouse-gas pollution from medium and heavy-duty trucks.”
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