WASHINGTON — When former President Donald Trump reclaims the White House in November, the Heritage Foundation hopes he will embrace the organization’s policy blueprint that would reward autonomous trucking while slowing the timeline for electric vehicles.
These goals are laid out in the U.S. Department of Transportation’s chapter in the 900-page roadmap for presidential transition called “Mandate for Leadership,” known as “Project 2025,” published by the conservative Heritage Foundation.
“Despite the Department’s enormous resources, congressional mandates and funding priorities make it difficult for the Department to focus on the pressing transportation issues that most directly affect average Americans. These include the high cost of private automobiles, particularly in a time of high inflation; the unpredictable and expensive commercial transportation by rail, air, and sea; and infrastructure spending that does not correspond to the modes of transportation preferred by most Americans,” the document said.
“A key challenge remains transforming the department to better meet the diverse needs of all Americans.”
While there is no guarantee that Trump would support the Heritage Foundation’s proposals – amid criticism from Democrats, he recently denied any connection to Project 2025 – the changes advocated by the foundation include ensuring that the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration enact long-awaited regulations on autonomous trucks.
“The current NHTSA and FMCSA regulations were written before the advent of automated vehicles and driving systems,” emphasizes Project 2025.
“Both administrations have issued advance notices of planned rulemakings beginning the process of updating their regulations to reflect this new technology. However, those regulations have stalled under the Biden administration, which has chosen to use the department’s tools to get people to use public transit and drive electric vehicles rather than help them choose the transportation options that work best for them.”
In the event of a Trump election victory, the document recommends that his administration take two regulatory initiatives:
- The FMCSA should work to clarify the regulations to align them with the DOT’s AV 3.0 guidelines, which would allow drivers to be safely phased out of operating a commercial motor vehicle.
- NHTSA should work to reduce regulatory barriers by focusing on updating vehicle standards and issuing performance-based rules for the operation of automated vehicles.
Part of AV 3.0, a transportation policy introduced during Trump’s administration, is the provision that FMCSA regulations “no longer assume that the driver is always a human or that a human is necessarily present on board during the operation of a commercial motor vehicle.”
Such guidance “has been critical to the advancement of the industry, and we strongly encourage FMCSA to codify this interpretation to reduce the potential for misinterpretation,” FMCSA’s Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association said in a comment submitted last year in response to the agency’s proposed supplemental rule on autonomous trucks.
Daimler Trucks North America and autonomous truck manufacturer Kodiak Robotics, among others, have also called on the FMCSA to codify AV 3.0 in its regulations.
Stagnant electric truck market
Project 2025 also sides with much of the trucking industry when it comes to the impact of the Biden administration’s climate policies and the fact that they are de facto forcing a transition from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles that is too rapid.
Although the document does not specifically mention trucks, Biden’s climate policy on cars is similar to the requirements for heavy-duty truck manufacturers, requiring them to launch more expensive zero-emission vehicles starting in 2027. Those higher costs would most likely be passed on to trucking companies and the car owners who buy those vehicles. Both the American Trucking Associations and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association have pushed back against the policy.
“In pursuit of an anti-fossil fuel climate agenda that was never approved by Congress, the Biden administration has raised fuel economy requirements to levels that most categories of internal combustion engine vehicles cannot realistically meet,” the Project 2025 document says.
“The goal is to force the auto industry to move away from traditional technologies and switch to electric vehicle production and to force Americans to accept expensive electric vehicles, despite consumers’ clear and stubborn preference for internal combustion engine vehicles.”
A second Trump administration, the script says, should reset the standards set by NHTSA “to a reasonable level that is technologically feasible for internal combustion engine vehicles and consistent with increased domestic auto production and healthy growth in sales of safer and more affordable new vehicles.”
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