重点关注充电基础设施和电动卡车的采用。
拜登政府正在制定更多有关国家货运业脱碳的愿景，包括计划标准化电动卡车的充电基础设施和加速采用无排放大型卡车。这项多管齐下的举措旨在解决美国温室气体排放的主要来源——同时也是那些试图实现可持续发展目标并在其自身供应链中减少碳排放的公司面临的棘手挑战。交通运输业产生了美国约 29% 的温室气体排放，而货运——无论是通过船舶、卡车还是铁路——约占其中的三分之一。
白宫国家气候顾问阿里·扎伊迪表示，该行业规模庞大，能源需求旺盛，也使得脱碳变得尤为困难——这一挑战需要政府采取广泛措施。“我们一直在玩打地鼠游戏，而不是实施全系统的战略，”他说。“在这里，我们最终将可靠、经济高效的货物运输作为目标，并努力减少与此相关的排放。”
查看 Transport Topics 更新的北美最大物流公司 100 强名单，了解该行业的顶级参与者如何适应艰难的货运市场并为未来做好准备。
白宫将首次明确制定零排放货运行业的国家目标。虽然没有明确的时间表，但这一雄心壮志得到了其他里程碑的支持，包括到 2030 年，中型和重型卡车销量的 30% 为零排放车型。白宫还承诺制定一项全国零排放货运战略，汇集联邦政府各部门的行动。
为了启动这项计划，白宫将于 4 月 24 日召开圆桌会议，与会领导人来自货运行业的各个领域——从商用卡车车队经理和港口主管到公用事业高管和地方政府官员。根据白宫的一份情况说明书，这次会议将重点讨论如何开始“加速建设必要的基础设施，使零排放货运生态系统在美国成为现实”。
新政府的许多举措都是自愿的，未来的政府很容易取消这些举措。前总统唐纳德·特朗普是 2024 年共和党的推定候选人，他嘲笑拜登的其他气候政策，并发誓要取消强制销售电动汽车的政策。活动人士呼吁政府加大力度。他们认为，减少货运污染将为居住在物流中心、高速公路和港口附近的人们带来更清洁的空气、更少的噪音和健康益处——现在他们首当其冲地承受着污染的冲击。联邦政府将瞄准一个障碍——分散的充电基础设施——并计划要求公众权衡为重型车辆供电所需的兆瓦充电设备的最低标准。
另外，环境保护署正在开放约 10 亿美元的《通货膨胀削减法案》资金申请，以帮助城市、州和部落用零排放车型取代校车、垃圾车和其他重型车辆。这笔钱旨在提供必要的加油基础设施和劳动力培训，以实现过渡，其中近一半的收益将流向处理严重空气污染的社区。
Biden Advances Plan to Make Freight Shipping Carbon-Free
Focus Is on Charging Infrastructure, Adoption of Electric Trucks
The Biden administration is laying out more of its vision for decarbonizing the nation’s freight industry, including plans for standardizing charging infrastructure for electric trucks and accelerating the adoption of emission-free big rigs.The multipronged initiative takes aim at a major source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions — as well as a thorny challenge for companies trying to meet sustainability targets and cut carbon across their own supply chains. The transportation sector generates about 29% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and the shipment of freight — whether on ships, trucks or rail — is responsible for about a third of that.
The industry’s massive scale and energy needs also make it particularly difficult to decarbonize — a challenge that demands a broad and government-wide approach, said White House National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi.
“We’ve been playing whack-a-mole as opposed to implementing a systemwide strategy,” he said. “Here we’re finally taking as our goal reliable, cost-effective shipment of goods and trying to decline the emissions associated with that.”
Check out Transport Topics' updated Top 100 list of the largest logistics companies in North America, and explore how the industry's top players have adapted to a tough freight market and are preparing for the future.
For the first time, the White House will explicitly establish a national goal for a zero-emissions freight sector. Though it doesn’t come with an express timetable, the ambition is undergirded by other milestones, including a target for 30% of medium- and heavy-duty truck sales to be zero-emission models in 2030.
The White House also is committing to developing a national zero-emission freight strategy that brings together action from across the federal government.
To kick off the initiative, the White House is convening a roundtable April 24 with leaders from across the freight sector — from commercial truck fleet managers and port directors to utility executives and local government officials. The gathering will focus on ways to begin “supercharging the buildout of the infrastructure necessary to make a zero-emissions freight ecosystem a reality in the United States,” according to a White House fact sheet.
Much of the new administration initiatives are voluntary and could be easily undone by a future administration. Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee, has scoffed at other Biden climate policies and vowed to undo policies compelling electric vehicle sales.
Activists have called on the administration to step up its efforts. They argue that paring pollution from freight transportation will deliver cleaner air, less noise and health benefits for people who live near logistics centers, highways and ports — and now bear the brunt of their pollution.
The federal government will take aim at one obstacle — disparate charging infrastructure — and plans to ask the public to weigh in on minimum standards for the megawatt charging equipment needed to power heavy-duty vehicles.
Separately, the Environmental Protection Agency is opening applications for some $1 billion in Inflation Reduction Act funding to help cities, states and tribes replace school buses, trash trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles with zero-emission models. The money is meant to provide necessary fueling infrastructure and workforce training to enable the transition, with nearly half of the benefits going to communities dealing with significant air pollution.