Testimony of Bill Van Amburg on Advanced Clean Trucks Rule

Statement of CALSTART in Support of the Advanced Clean Truck Regulation

Chair Nichols, Members of the Board, attendees. I am Bill Van Amburg, Executive Vice President of CALSTART, and the leader of all our truck and off-road work.

Thank you for this opportunity to provide our comments today on the Advanced Clean Truck – ACT – regulation. It’s important to acknowledge that among our 250 members there are divergent views on this subject. However, we believe we must push ourselves to achieve the state’s goals and accelerate industry growth.

Let me outline our core comments:

First: CALSTART supports the ACT rule and we DO believe that staff’s revised percentages, while aggressive, are achievable.

Second: With the right focus on those fleet segments ready to move faster, we believe they can be exceeded.

We performed an internal analysis using a more segmented approach based on the “beachhead” – or first-success – vehicle segments from the three-year investment plan. We have concluded that higher overall percentages could be achieved, IF these beachhead application segments were really focused on.

As a result, we strongly support well created and focused fleet rules – they are a critical component to ensure the success of ACT and we urge CARB to develop these rules with all speed possible, based on the most promising “beachhead segment.” This gives manufacturers focus for their product development.

These include:

• All urban delivery and services, including last mile delivery.
• School bus, shuttle buses, yard tractors also are prime, followed by food and beverage delivery, refuse and urban/regional heavy goods movement.

Third: We also recognize the need to secure incentive funding to support successful implementation of the rule. While we know this is out of CARB’s control and should not deter setting the rule, we believe it is very important that CARB’s Board send a policy signal of supporting incentives AND regulations AND infrastructure investment together, as a way to build the ramp to the rule and help maintain the pace of transformation.

We believe this is an All-Hands-On-Deck moment for the State – it takes CARB’s leadership on regulations AND state incentives AND utility AND other agency funding for infrastructure AND local jurisdictions setting in place cross-supporting polices.

We pledge to work hard with CARB, industry, the Governor and the legislature to make sure resources are focused on achieving this climate, clean air and social equity outcome – while building jobs and our economy for leadership as we recover from COVID. This regulation can help build the zero-emission truck industry and create strong state and national jobs. We have launched a National Zero Emission Truck Coalition to seek incentives and support at the federal level.

Lastly, our Global Commercial Vehicle Drive to Zero program stakeholders are signaling worldwide interest in the ACT rule to be a model for other nations, provinces, and states. We pledge to work with you, and our global partners, toward this alignment.

Thank you for this opportunity to share our support for ACT.