NEW YORK – New York Attorney General Letitia James is partnering with Connecticut Attorney General William Tong and Acting New Jersey Attorney General Andrew Bruck in pressing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to move swiftly to tighten controls on air pollution emitted by heavy-duty trucks.

In a letter to EPA Administrator Michael Regan and National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy, the attorneys general urged the EPA to act quickly to propose stronger standards for emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from new on-road heavy-duty trucks and engines for model year 2027 and beyond.

“The health of millions of New Yorkers — particularly our children, elderly, and most vulnerable — is routinely threatened by smog pollution,” James said. “We know that heavy-duty trucks are one of the largest sources of pollution that cause New York’s serious smog problem, and that pollution has the greatest impact on low-income and communities of color. The EPA needs to protect the health of all New Yorkers by putting the brakes on smog-forming pollution from heavy-duty trucks.”

Even though New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey have implemented some of the most stringent control programs for NOx in the nation, the New York City metropolitan area failed to meet national air quality standards for smog by the July 2021 deadline. As a result, the EPA will soon reclassify the region from “serious” nonattainment with smog standards to “severe” nonattainment.

The states’ on-going smog problem is, in a substantial way, driven by the pollution emissions of on-road heavy-duty trucks, as these vehicles emit 20% of the total NOx pollution in the tri-state region. In their letter, the attorneys general note that a sizeable proportion of this NOx is out of their control due to out-of-state trucks operating in their states or truck pollution that blows in from upwind states. Without strong action from the EPA to curb NOx emissions from out-of-state heavy-duty vehicles that New York and the other states lack the authority to regulate, the attorneys general argue that the states will continue to struggle to meet smog standards and protect the health of their residents.