EPA Workshops Aim to Streamline Nation's Idling Laws for Trucks

Drivers of big rigs deal with big-time safety obstacles everyday, from loading dock hazards to heavy lifting to difficult driving conditions. Now EPA is trying to mitigate one obstacle that drivers have been dealing with for years: the inconsistent patchwork of anti-idling laws across the country.

While EPA lacks the authority to establish a national idling law, the agency plans to gather the various stakeholders -- including state environmental authorities, trucking groups, drivers, environmental groups and health associations -- for a series of workshops in Washington over the next few months to develop a consensus approach to eliminating the inconsistencies in idling laws across the country. The objective is to create a model that state and local entities can follow when developing their own idling laws.

The agency estimates half the country has state or local laws limiting the amount of time a vehicle can idle, and those laws "vary widely from state to state and municipality to municipality," said Glen Kedzie, environmental counsel for the American Trucking Associations.