And while EPA is updating climate pollution standards for cars and trucks, per its mandate, EPA has not updated its locomotive pollution rules since George W. Bush was president—meaning decades-old locomotives continue to operate and pollute communities based on standards set 15 or more years ago.
Shockingly, this means that truck transportation—as polluting as it is—is becoming cleaner than rail transportation. We’re electrifying trucks as the big rail companies just keep running their ancient, deadly, engines through communities.
Rail pollution is an environmental injustice
As trains chug past neighborhoods, playgrounds, and schools, they spew diesel exhaust and create toxic pollution. Communities of color and lower-income communities, who more commonly live and work near freight routes, are forced to experience a disproportionate burden of this lethal pollution.
There’s an undeniable link between diesel pollution from locomotives and health harms on communities. Pollution from locomotives, trucks, and yard equipment is linked to cancer clusters in neighborhoods near rail yards, where lower-income residents and residents of color are overrepresented.
These communities, which live on the frontlines of diesel death zones, have been long-advocating for their health and safety by urging EPA to put states in the driver’s seat and protect communities from the risks of locomotive pollution.
EPA can prioritize climate and environmental justice by getting out of the way.
EPA has not updated federal locomotive pollution rules for trains for 15 years. An update is past due. EPA needs to lay the groundwork by supporting state action that can help advance the technology on which nationwide standards can be based. So, in light of California’s pioneering rules and rail’s ugly attack on those rules and the communities they protect, EPA needs to act first by finalizing its preemption rule fix by October 2023.
And there is more to do. EPA Administrator Michael Regan has committed to prioritizing climate and environmental justice. After he speedily completes the preemption rule fix, he should keep moving on the freight system. Opportunities abound, from dedicating Inflation Reduction Act grant and loan funds toward electrification of trucks, trains, and freight equipment, to finalizing the strongest national rules possible for these sources. A new Evergreen memorandum lays out next steps across the sector. But the journey starts by clearing the way for long-needed action on freight rail, consistent with Administrator Regan’s environmental justice commitments. This is EPA’s opportunity to take another major step on that promise and deliver for the millions of Americans who deserve to breathe clean air and live in safe, healthy communities.
The communities that lie along U.S. freight routes are hurting; the Biden administration should stand up to the rail barons and take action now.