FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 15, 2026
Contact: Ashley Sullivan, ashley.sullivan@weact.org, 1 (917) 837-1183
WASHINGTON – Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a rule to weaken tailpipe standards for model years 2027 and later heavy-duty engines and vehicles. The emissions standards were strengthened in 2022 for the first time in 20 years. These were a meaningful step forward, though they fell short of the strongest, health-protective standards the Clean Air for the Long Haul cohort and advocates pushed for. Diesel pollution from trucks is responsible for more than 8,400 premature deaths, 497,000 missed work days, and $93.9 billion in health damages every year. Communities of color and low-income neighborhoods often live near transportation hubs and experience outsized exposure to this toxic pollution, increasing their risk of health harms, including asthma and respiratory illnesses, heart disease, cancer, preterm births, and premature deaths.
In response, members of the Clean Air for the Long Haul cohort share:
“Decades of discriminatory policy have pushed major roads, ports and highways into low-income communities and communities of color,” said Yosef Robele, Federal Policy Manager at WE ACT for Environmental Justice. “New York City neighborhoods that are predominantly Black and Latino/a/e, like the South Bronx and Harlem, are surrounded by highways and shipping hubs such as warehouses. These developments add pollution from thousands of diesel truck trips every day, worsening air quality associated with respiratory and other health conditions. Children in the South Bronx face a 17 percent asthma risk, which is over double the national average. Across the U.S., truck pollution is responsible for millions of tons of toxic pollutants including nitrogen oxide and smog. The Trump administration’s effort to weaken truck pollution standards will only make these issues worse. This action, alongside the many other clean air rollbacks, is an abandonment of the EPA’s obligation to protect human health and the environment.”
“For our communities, mitigating the harms of tailpipe pollution is a literal life and death issue,” said Andrea Marpillero-Colomina, PhD., Sustainable Communities Policy Advisor at GreenLatinos. “By the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s own findings, vehicle emissions are a major contributor to premature deaths and a serious public health concern. Further, tailpipe pollution harms are not distributed equally. Communities located near highways, freight corridors, ports, and industrial hubs experience disproportionate exposure to NOx tailpipe pollution and its associated health burdens; these are most often low-income communities and communities of color, which endure pediatric asthma rates that are eight times higher than their high-income, white counterparts. This ongoing harm to our most vulnerable populations represents a clear environmental justice issue that can only be mitigated through effective policymaking. The EPA’s latest proposal is the opposite of that and demonstrates complete disregard for our lives.”
Trump EPA’s new proposal to weaken the 2022 heavy-duty vehicle rule will “increase ozone-forming nitrogen oxide pollution from heavy duty trucks by over 4 percent in 2030 and almost 12 percent by 2055.” Additionally, the EPA did not model impacts on human health or air quality in this proposal process, despite 80 million people of color living in places with failing grades for soot and smog pollution, and the fact that Black individuals are nearly three times more likely to be hospitalized or die from asthma than their white counterparts. The Clean Air for the Long Haul cohort condemns this rollback and broader rollbacks of vehicle and climate safeguards, including its recent proposal to delay the light-duty vehicle pollutant standards, as well as the repeal of the Endangerment Finding and motor vehicles greenhouse gas emission standards.
The benefits of electrifying our freight system are immense, and we need strong standards to encourage the industry to adopt zero-emissions vehicles. We do not need polluting industry giveaways, we need strong, health-protective EPA rules that deliver clean air, safeguarding our lives and future, especially for environmental justice communities.
###
Clean Air For The Long Haul, a nationwide coalition of environmental justice groups, coordinates federal rulemaking campaigns, centering overburdened communities, to reduce air pollution from power plants, cars, and trucks. The coalition seeks to catalyze the environmental justice movement through federal emissions reductions targeting United States power and transportation sectors. Coalition member organizations include: Duwamish River Community Coalition, Green Door Initiative, GreenLatinos, PODER Austin, Rise4EJ, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, West End Revitalization Association, and Wisconsin/Michigan Green Muslims.