Truck, bus and lumber dealers warn Vermont not ready for immediate zero-emission sales mandate

Bill Smith, a lawyer who represents the Vermont Truck and Bus Association and the Vermont Retail Lumber Dealers Association, told the House Transportation Committee that Vermont’s planned zero-emission sales requirement for medium- and heavy-duty trucks would be premature for the state’s fleet and businesses.

“They’re not ready for prime time,” Smith said, summarizing his clients’ view of battery-electric medium- and heavy-duty trucks. He told the committee the vehicles “cost too much, and they do too little, and they might not even be available here.”

Smith said the pending requirement would require 10% of medium- and heavy-duty trucks sold in Vermont to be zero-emission beginning with model year 2026, and said manufacturers and dealers were unlikely to bring electric heavy trucks to Vermont if they could meet regulatory obligations elsewhere. He added that school buses in the same vehicle-size categories face a 13% sales threshold under the same framework.

Why it matters: Smith told legislators that trucking and local building-supply firms together employ many Vermonters and supply most towns in the state. He said the associations he represents include small family firms and large carriers; he cited a figure that 1 in 18 jobs in Vermont is tied to trucking and that the average wage in the trucking industry is…