Updated to include Democratic VP pick Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota.
Trucking is always in a state of flux, and fleets generally learn to adapt with enough lead time. But who wins the of U.S. Presidential Election on Nov. 5 could change that. Republican nominee, former president Donald Trump, and presumptive Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris have vastly different approaches to the economy, energy, and—well, just about everything. And on Jan. 20, 2025, they’ll both be aggressive in executing their plan for America. That’s not a lot of time for fleets to prepare.
Our goal is to help fleets maintain uptime and efficiency, and part of that is planning ahead for future issues. So we’ve looked through what both Harris and Trump have said on issues vital to the transportation industry and provide some insights on how they will impact your operations.
The Democrat ticket: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz
After months asserting he would stay in the race, President Joe Biden declared he would not seek reelection in July, with Harris taking his place. She picked the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, as her running mate. Walz, a former high school teacher, came under fire for how his service in the National Guard ended. After being promoted to Command Seargeant Major and with his battalion expecting a deployment to Iraq, Walz filed his retirement papers and ran for Congress. He has been accused of cowardice and stolen valor.
Walz was also Minnesota governor during the George Floyd riots in 2020, which were not quelled in Minneapolis and soon engulfed the whole country that summer. Harris at the time solicited donations on Twitter to bail out rioters via the Minnesota Freedom Fund. Fleets operating in big cities may remember how tacitly allowing mostly peaceful protestors to storm highways turned out. For one tanker driver that rolled into a mob on Interstate-35W after it was shut down, it meant a severe beating. Officals said no one in the crowd was injured. At the time, even Walz said the driver was not intentionally trying to hurt anyone.
Based on the current administration’s 3.5 year track record, as well as decades of Democrat rhetoric on green technology, we have a good idea of how the next four years would go. Also, please note that if Harris wins, the Democrats would likely regain control of the House and retain a Senate majority.
Emissions and electrification
For the most part, Harris would not deviate from Biden on mitigating climate change, the key issue impacting trucking’s future. On one side, the EPA under Biden and Harris has handed down a barrage of regulations to reduce emissions.
Most pressing is the 2027 NOX rule. The NOx rule calls for MY 2027 and beyond diesel trucks to have engines that produce 82% lower NOx emissions and last longer which will increase equipment costs by up to $30,000. From 2027 to 2032, this rule will force OEMs to sell more near-zero and zero-emission vehicles to reach targets for duty cycles.
In April, the EPA issued its Final rule for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles—Phase 3. These basically call for OEMs to drive down emissions through alt-fuel powertrains and zero emission vehicles. There are several avenues to meet the emission targets, but the one that got the most attention would have ZEVs account for 25% of long-haul and 40% of short-haul heavy-duty trucks produced by OEMs in 2032.
At the same time, the Biden-Harris administration galvanized Congress to pass two major pieces of legislation—the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill (BIL) —to further that agenda. Both provide billions to hasten the adoption of zero emission technology, including battery-electric vehicle charging and hydrogen production for fuel cell electric vehicles.
If the industry switched completely to battery-electric, consultant Roland Berger projected the cost for infrastructure and utility upgrades alone would nearly hit $1 trillion. The trucks will also be twice as much or more than current diesel offerings, while not providing as much range. This has some major fleets concerned with how they will keep up with current freight demand with more expensive, less productive assets.
In the long run these could have major benefits, according to stats provided by Biden’s appointed officials. The Environmental Protection Agency estimated that greenhouse gas reduced by IRA tax credits and other levers will save the world $5 trillion between 2023 and 2050, and the U.S. between $640 billion and $2.5 trillion.
The IRA would subsidize fleets for purchasing these vehicles, though they would also need to install charging infrastructure and utilities would need to make extensive upgrades to support the additional draw on the grid. Also, even with any state and federal tax credits that could cover 90% of a ZEVs upfront costs, the Federal Excise Tax and state taxes still make them cost-prohibitive to many.
Trucking leaders are onboard in terms of improving sustainability, but question how they can remain profitable under the currently aggressive timelines.
“Although we continue to be optimistic about the promise of electrification in medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, we continue to encounter challenges related to costs, vehicle range, durability, and charging infrastructure that complicate broader deployment of heavy-duty battery-electric trucks,” Taki Darakos, VP of vehicle maintenance and fleet service at Pitt Ohio—and chairman of the ATAs’ Technology & Maintenance Council’s S.11 Sustainability & Environmental Technologies Study Group, told Congress in the spring.
As more public and private investments and adoption lead to improvements in technology performance and better economies of scale, commercial ZEVs are anticipated to get better range and cost less. But no one really knows when that will be.
But will Harris, who previously served as attorney general and senator for California, the most aggressive state in terms of emissions, adjust to reality?
Harris, who above all holds the passage of time as significant, believes the time to act is now. At a United nations climate summit in Dubai last December, Harris said: “The urgency of this moment is clear. The clock is no longer just ticking, it is banging. And we must make up for lost time.”
And as California AG, Harris boasted that she “took on big oil,” winning settlements from BP, Chevon, and Phillips 66. She also went after Volkswagen for its emissions scandal, which included getting VW to provide California $1.18 billion for zero-emission technology and “environmental mitigation.”
Roads and bridges
The party has also stated in no uncertain terms that besides electrification, future infrastructure planning seek to rectify the negative impact past projects have had on “historically disadvantaged and underserved communities.”
The American Society of Civil Engineer’s 2021 Infrastructure Report Card (released every four years) gave roads a “D” and bridges a “C.” The report found “43% of our public roadways in poor or mediocre condition, a number that has remained stagnant over the past several years.” In all, the ASCE said the U.S. had a “$786 billion backlog of road and bridge capital needs.” The BIL earmarked $300 billion of the $1.2 trillion total to repair roads and bridges.
The Republican nominees: Trump/Vance
Two days after a miraculously well-timed head turn toward an infographic spared Donald Trump from an assassin’s kill shot at a Pennsylvania rally, he named Sen. JD Vance (OH-R) as his running mate. Vance is less than two years into his first term as Ohio’s junior senator, his first role as an elected official.
Here’s what the two have said and done to indicate how they would differ from Dems on trucking issues.
Trump on energy and emissions
In his 92-minute RNC acceptance speech, Trump said a whole lot, promising to restore peace to the world, deport illegal immigrants, and reduce inflation. Those would affect all Americans, but there were a few things that stood out that would directly impact trucking.
The overarching one should be most pleasing to the no-nonsense folks responsible for moving upwards of 70+% of U.S. goods.
“Together, we will restore vision, strength, competence, and we’re going to have a thing called common sense making most of our decisions actually,” Trump asserted.
From this stems two major tenets of a second Trump term.
First, Trump wants to “drill, baby, drill.”
In April, Trump also pleaded with oil executives to donate $1 billion to his campaign at a private event, so he could win and open more access to offshore drilling and allow LNG exports, according to The Washington Post. That same article also cited oil companies gave Biden $400 million in lobbying last year.
Big Oil has so far not given Trump $1 billion; the campaign has $128 million as of July 21. Regardless, Trump would clearly be a major benefactor to the oil industry. Drilling and rolling back regulations have been his stance for several years. One of Trump’s first acts in office in 2017 was to leave the Paris Climate Accords. And the U.S. did start exporting more oil than importing in 2019, with 13 million barrels produced per day. That number is likely to rise in a second term, driving down the cost of gas and diesel.
“We have more liquid gold under our feet than any other country by far,” Trump boasted in the speech. “We are a nation that has the opportunity to make an absolute fortune with its energy. We have it and China doesn’t. Under the Trump administration just three and a half years ago, we were energy independent. But soon we will actually be better than that. We will be energy dominant and supply not only ourselves, but we will supply the rest of the world."
It should be noted in late 2023, under Biden the U.S. produced 13.2 million barrels per day. In mid-July 2019, though, diesel cost $3.05/gallon on average, while this week diesel cost $3.78/gallon.
Trump noted Biden’s 180-degree turn on oil production, saying “they took our energy policies and destroyed them. Then they immediately went back to them, but by that time, so much was lost. But we will do it at levels that nobody’s ever seen before, and we’ll end lots of different things. We’ll start paying off debt and start lowering taxes even further.”
One reason this is so important, Trump noted, is because of the high energy demands of AI.
“A.I. needs tremendous—literally, twice the electricity that’s available now in our country, can you imagine? But instead we’re spending on places where they recharge electric cars,” Trump said.
Though he didn’t accurately articulate AI’s energy needs, Trump was not far off. According to the Electric Power Research Institute, “data centers could consume up to 9% of U.S. electricity generation by 2030—more than double the amount currently used.” Data centers are where AI computation is processed.
Trump on EVs
Where Trump and many truckers are most certainly aligned is on electric vehicles.
“I will end the electric vehicle mandate on day one,” Trump said. “Thereby saving the U.S. auto industry from complete obliteration, which is happening right now, and saving U.S. customers thousands and thousands of dollars per car.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk endorsed Trump shortly after he was nearly assassinated on July 13.
Trump has stated he is not outright opposed to EVs, though demand should be dictated by the market. He called the current administration’s push for clean energy “an incredible waste of taxpayer dollars that is fueling the inflation crisis.”
He attributed the rise in inflation due in part to “the Green New Scam,” apparently his nickname for the IRA and BIL.
Though it’s not clear how he would do it, Trump said he would “redirect that money for important projects like roads, bridges, dams and we will not allow it to be spent on the meaningless Green New Scam ideas.”
One of those ideas baked into the BIL is using $7.5 billion to build 500,000 EV chargers by 2030. As of May 2024, only eight were installed.
Trump brought that up in his speech, too, though in his typical loose relationship with hard facts, said the Biden administration “spent $9 billion on eight chargers, three of which didn’t work.”
Technically, the government has until 2030 to meet its goal, but the BIL was signed into law Nov. 15, 2021. There’s warranted criticism about how fast and at what cost the government can complete this project, or the myriad others that need to work in tandem, such as grid modernization.
The fact is government projects are never efficient. And the more money you put into them, the less efficient they become. And if the sustainability movement is truly about mitigating humans’ impact on the environment and preserving resources, it should strive for maximum efficiency. Trump’s approach to make EVs compete on an even playing field with fossil fuels would force developers of the technology to find better and cheaper ways to manufacture them.
Unsurprisingly, Trump’s VP pick also lacks the zeal for EVs that Biden and Harris have had. Vance’s legislative history indicates he supports ending subsidies for EVs and instead offering up to $7,500 rebates for gas, diesel and hybrid vehicles assembled in America.
“Right now, the official policy of the Biden administration is to spend billions of dollars on subsidies for electric vehicles made overseas,” Vance has stated when he introduced the Drive American Act. “If we’re subsidizing anything, it ought to be Ohio workers—not the green energy daydreams that are offshoring their jobs to China. We can secure a bright future for American autoworkers by passing this legislation and reversing the misguided policies of the Biden administration.”
Summary:
On the surface, a return of Trump would seem to benefit fleets in the near term. Tapping America’s abundant energy reserves would result in cheaper gas and diesel. Trump’s track record indicates he would also try to swiftly resolve the Russia-Ukraine War, which the Biden administration has blamed for inflation, calling it the “Putin price hike.” That would also improve the global supply of oil and natural gas, lowering costs. The savings passed down to consumers to fuel a stronger economy, resulting in more spending and a need to move more freight.
Fleet leaders would also get a reprieve from worrying about emissions regulations and instead develop an electrification strategy at their own pace. Those who don’t evolve to become more efficient, whether though alt-fuels, BEVs, or fuel cell trucks will pay the price if that’s what the market dictates, as opposed to what the government demands.
In short, a Trump win would allow trucking to organically reach its next stage of near-zero and zero-emission operation. Leaders should still aim to run more efficiently and explore what equipment will work best for them in the coming decades.
On the other side, a Harris presidency would aggressively push extreme environmental policies, forcing commercial vehicle operators to adopt technology that “just isn’t here yet,” according to Ryder CEO Robert Sanchez, and echoed by fleets across the country.
Harris has supported fracking bans in the past and gone after oil companies. She has also met with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at least six times, while accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of war crimes. Neither bode well for fuel costs coming down. Or for trucking making a strong resurgence in the next four years.
