Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Economy

Hidden in the New EPA Rules: A Turning Point for Zero Emissions Trains

In its new draft rules on vehicles, EPA signals it might let California finally regulate rail.

A locomotive.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Buried at the bottom of the Environmental Protection Agency’s draft rules on greenhouse gas limits for cars and trucks was a proposal related to another highly polluting form of transit: trains.

The EPA said Wednesday it was considering giving states more authority to regulate locomotives, specifically citing concern that its current policy could impede California’s “exploration of regulations” for trains and train engines. The Golden State has been lobbying the EPA to tighten its standards for locomotives, or to allow it to do so, for years. However, a 1998 rule limits states' ability to regulate emissions for a range of nonroad vehicles, including trains.

I’m not going to pretend this could be a huge deal for climate change. Trains are responsible for just 2% of transportation emissions in the U.S. This is, however, a huge deal for public health and environmental justice. Exposure to diesel exhaust causes lung cancer. Trains also emit nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, which irritate the lungs, exacerbate respiratory diseases including asthma, and contribute to premature deaths. Rail yards are often located near densely populated areas and disproportionately neighbor low-income communities that suffer from a combination of economic, health, and environmental burdens.

But while public health is the most urgent reason to cut pollution from trains, the most promising solutions to address that pollution — batteries and hydrogen fuel cells — will also pretty much eliminate the climate impacts of trains, as a treat.

California petitioned the EPA to tighten its standards for trains back in 2017. “We cannot deliver on our collective responsibility to improve conditions on the ground for overburdened communities without new action by U.S. EPA to require a transition to zero and near-zero emission locomotives,” wrote Mary Nichols, then-chair of the California Air Resources Board, or CARB, the state agency that regulates emissions.

CARB’s concern isn’t just public health, but federal compliance. The state is not on track to meet federal air quality standards. California’s rail yards are already a major source of pollution, and rail operators are planning expansions. The state expects freight rail to increase 50% in the next seven years.

“Locomotives are so dirty that state regulators identified reducing their pollution as the biggest single strategy in their plan to reduce smog to federal health standards by 2037 — responsible for more than 30% of the emissions cuts needed, more than any other sector, including all cars and trucks on the road,” the Los Angeles Times’ editorial board wrote in a recent piece on the need to clean up the rail industry.

“California is a leader on climate,” said Chris Chavez, deputy policy director for the Coalition for Clean Air, a statewide organization working on air quality issues. “The problem is that we still have the dirtiest air in the nation.”

Part of the challenge is that trains are incredibly durable. They are typically “remanufactured,” or repaired and restored, every seven to 10 years, but can otherwise stick around for decades. EPA tightened its emissions standards for locomotives in 2008, but “remanufactured” trains aren’t required to upgrade to the highest standards. Chavez said that in the South Coast Air Quality Management District, a region that encompasses Orange County and much of Los Angeles, some 30% to 50% of the trains still only meet the dirtiest, lowest-level EPA standards. “Those are the most polluting engines that are available and they’re in the dirtiest air basin in the country.”

Under the Trump administration, California’s petition went unanswered. But late last year, Biden’s EPA finally responded. Though it didn’t commit to tightening standards for trains at the federal level, the agency said it had assembled a “rail study team” to evaluate technologies to reduce train emissions, as well as policy options to get the industry to turn over its fleet to trains with newer, cleaner technologies more quickly. It also hinted that it was planning to clarify its policy on state-promulgated regulations.

California hasn’t been idly standing by. State regulators determined that although they had no authority to regulate the manufacture of locomotives, they could issue rules for railroad operators and the types of equipment they use. Next month, CARB is expected to vote on a set of new rules designed to force the industry to begin retiring its oldest trains and replacing them with newer, cleaner models, and by 2035, with zero- or near zero-emission trains that are powered by batteries, overhead electric lines, or hydrogen fuel cells. While the regulations would pertain to trains that are “in-use” in California, it would have implications for the whole of North America, since the rail system is interconnected, and trains frequently travel far beyond their owners’ tracks.

The Inflation Reduction Act could help. The legislation included $3 billion for grants and rebates to reduce air pollution from ports and $60 million for the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act program, which funds pollution reduction projects related to transportation in low-income and disadvantaged communities.

CARB’s rules are sure to face litigation from the rail industry, which claims that the “entire proposed regulation is preempted by federal laws and regulations.” The Association of American Railroads says the industry is already working toward zero-emission rail, with major railroads like BNSF and Union Pacific piloting battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell trains, but that these solutions won't be commercially available “for the foreseeable future.” But the EPA could soon strengthen California’s case.

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Hotspots

Judge, Siding With Trump, Saves Solar From NEPA

And more on the week’s biggest conflicts around renewable energy projects.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Jackson County, Kansas – A judge has rejected a Hail Mary lawsuit to kill a single solar farm over it benefiting from the Inflation Reduction Act, siding with arguments from a somewhat unexpected source — the Trump administration’s Justice Department — which argued that projects qualifying for tax credits do not require federal environmental reviews.

  • We previously reported that this lawsuit filed by frustrated Kansans targeted implementation of the IRA when it first was filed in February. That was true then, but afterwards an amended complaint was filed that focused entirely on the solar farm at the heart of the case: NextEra’s Jeffrey Solar. The case focuses now on whether Jeffrey benefiting from IRA credits means it should’ve gotten reviewed under the National Environmental Policy Act.
  • Perhaps surprisingly to some, the Trump Justice Department argued against these NEPA reviews – a posture that jibes with the administration’s approach to streamlining the overall environmental analysis process but works in favor of companies using IRA credits.
  • In a ruling that came down on Tuesday, District Judge Holly Teeter ruled the landowners lacked standing to sue because “there is a mismatch between their environmental concerns tied to construction of the Jeffrey Solar Project and the tax credits and regulations,” and they did not “plausibly allege the substantial federal control and responsibility necessary to trigger NEPA review.”
  • “Plaintiffs’ claims, arguments, and requested relief have been difficult to analyze,” Teeter wrote in her opinion. “They are trying to use the procedural requirements of NEPA as a roadblock because they do not like what Congress has chosen to incentivize and what regulations Jackson County is considering. But those challenges must be made to the legislative branch, not to the judiciary.”

2. Portage County, Wisconsin – The largest solar project in the Badger State is now one step closer to construction after settling with environmentalists concerned about impacts to the Greater Prairie Chicken, an imperiled bird species beloved in wildlife conservation circles.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Spotlight

Renewables Swept Up in Data Center Backlash

Just look at Virginia.

A data center.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Solar and wind projects are getting swept up in the blowback to data center construction, presenting a risk to renewable energy companies who are hoping to ride the rise of AI in an otherwise difficult moment for the industry.

The American data center boom is going to demand an enormous amount of electricity and renewables developers believe much of it will come from solar and wind. But while these types of energy generation may be more easily constructed than, say, a fossil power plant, it doesn’t necessarily mean a connection to a data center will make a renewable project more popular. Not to mention data centers in rural areas face complaints that overlap with prominent arguments against solar and wind – like noise and impacts to water and farmland – which is leading to unfavorable outcomes for renewable energy developers more broadly when a community turns against a data center.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Energy

Where Clean Energy Goes From Here

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is one signature away from becoming law and drastically changing the economics of renewables development in the U.S. That doesn’t mean decarbonization is over, experts told Heatmap, but it certainly doesn’t help.

The Big Beautiful Bill and clean energy.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

What do we do now?

That’s the question people across the climate change and clean energy communities are asking themselves now that Congress has passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which would slash most of the tax credits and subsidies for clean energy established under the Inflation Reduction Act.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue