Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association, Inc. v. EPA

In a challenge to 2016 greenhouse gas emissions and fuel efficiency standards for medium- and heavy-duty engines and vehicles brought by the Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals held that neither the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) nor the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) had authority to adopt standards that apply to trailers. With respect to the greenhouse gas emissions standards, the court concluded that trailers are not “motor vehicles” under Section 202 of the Clean Air Act because trailers are not “self-propelled.” EPA therefore could not rely on Section 202(a)(1) to set emission standards for trailers and require trailer manufacturers to comply with the standards. With respect to the fuel efficiency standards, the court rejected NHTSA’s argument that the term “vehicles” in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 provision authorizing NHTSA to set fuel economy standards for “commercial medium- and heavy-duty on-highway vehicles” could reasonably be interpreted to include trailers. The majority determined that “[b]ecause a trailer uses no fuel, it doesn’t have fuel economy” and that in the statutory context, “nothing is a vehicle unless it has fuel economy.” Judge Millett dissented from the majority’s conclusion that NHTSA lacked authority to issue fuel economy regulations that apply to commercial trailers. She wrote that NHTSA “acted well within its delegated regulatory authority in establishing fuel efficiency requirements for the trailer portion of tractor-trailers that regularly travel the Nation’s highways.”

On September 29, 2020, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the compliance dates for fuel economy regulations adopted by the Obama administration to the extent the regulations apply to truck trailers. The court heard oral argument on September 15 in a case challenging not only the fuel economy regulations, which the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) promulgated, but also greenhouse gas emissions standards promulgated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the same rulemaking. In October 2017, the D.C. Circuit stayed the EPA standards, which would have taken effect in January 2018. The NHTSA regulations would have taken effect in January 2021. In its stay motion, the Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association (TTMA) argued that the court had already determined that its challenge to the EPA standards was likely to be successful and that the NHTSA standards could not function without the EPA standards. TTMA also argued that NHTSA lacked authority to regulate fuel economy of trailers. In addition, TTMA asserted that its members would suffer immediate and irreparable harm in the absence of a stay. Both EPA and NHTSA are still in the process of reconsidering their trailer rules.

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