Colorado Finalizes Clean Truck Strategy

May 19, 2022

Colorado has finalized its clean truck strategy, which calls to encourage adoption of zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty trucks. The state plan has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation.

The Colorado Clean Truck Strategy is a joint effort of the Colorado Energy Office, CoDOT, and the Air Pollution Control Division of the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment.

The strategy is part of a package of initiatives undertaken by Gov. Jared Polis and the Polis administration to improve air quality, reduce emissions and save people and small businesses money.

“Colorado has enormous opportunities to reduce pollution and improve quality of life by transitioning from diesel to zero-emission trucks and buses,” said Will Toor, executive director of the Colorado Energy Office, in a prepared statement. “This strategic plan creates a framework for achieving big things through investment, collaboration and regulation.”

Medium- and heavy-duty vehicles include semi trucks, school buses, snow plows, delivery vans, large pick-up trucks and many different vehicle types in between. These are the vehicles that bring Colorado kids to school, deliver food to our local grocery stores, plow our streets, repair our critical infrastructure, power our businesses and do hundreds of other critical jobs for our lives and economy. Unfortunately, medium- and heavy-duty vehicles are also the second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector, contributing 22% of on-road greenhouse gas emissions despite being less than 10 percent of all Colorado vehicles.

Using input from multiple public meetings, stakeholder groups and the Colorado Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicle Study, the agencies developed a draft strategy to accelerate clean truck adoption in the state that recognized the increasing importance of freight to the economy. From the summer of 2020 through April, the state received 120 comments. The finalized strategy addresses a number of these comments through edits or adoption of suggestions.

What does Colorado Clean Truck Strategy cover?

  • A vision statement focused on delivering an “efficient, affordable, and equitable large-scale transition of Colorado’s medium- and heavy-duty vehicle sector to zero emission technologies,” with a particular focus on ensuring the transition prioritizes improving air quality for those who have historically been most burdened by medium- and heavy-duty vehicle pollution.
  • Clear goals and objectives for the state to measure progress toward, including specific objectives for zero emission vehicle adoption statewide, zero emission vehicle adoption within the state fleet, and the electrification of the state’s transit and school bus fleets.
  • A prioritized set of 35 actions that state agencies will implement to support this transition, including near-term actions in 2022 and 2023, as well as medium-term priorities agencies will initiate as capacity allows or once necessary planning is completed. The 35 actions identified span seven different categories of initiatives, including procurement policies and programs, vehicle incentives and financing, infrastructure planning and investments, utility strategies, workforce development and regulatory actions.

A key focus of the strategy is the implementation and leveraging of several new opportunities and funding sources to help build the market for zero emission trucks and buses in Colorado that collectively total nearly $1 billion in investments, not including several new federal discretionary grant programs. These new opportunities include proposed air quality investments in the governor’s 2023 budget for a new electric school bus incentive program, the development of the 10-Year Plans and initial program offerings for the Clean Fleet Enterprise, Clean Transit Enterprise, and Community Access Enterprise, which will invest in vehicle incentives and charging infrastructure, and historic new federal funding opportunities for charging infrastructure, hydrogen refueling infrastructure, and electric school bus and transit bus investments.

Source: CoDOT