About New Mexico Clean Vehicles Clean Air

Advanced Clean Cars and Trucks standards will open new doors to cleaner air and improved health for New Mexicans. The standards will also help New Mexico reach its bold goals to address climate change. These standards build on those adopted by the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board and the Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Air Quality Control Board in May 2022.

The New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board and the Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Air Quality Control Board are considering Advanced Clean Cars and Trucks standards.

Transportation pollution is the second largest source of climate pollution in New Mexico, harming our air, environment, and climate. Transportation pollution is a public health crisis, and it worsens health problems for our most vulnerable New Mexicans, including children, elders, and anyone with respiratory conditions like asthma.

Transportation-related pollutants are linked to many adverse health effects, including decreased lung function, inflammation of airways, aggravated asthma, increased risk of cancer, damage to the immune system, and neurological, reproductive, developmental, and other health problems.

The trucking industry is a leading source of unhealthy air pollution and has an outsized climate impact. Medium- and heavy-duty trucks that support the shipping, freight, and delivery industries are a significant source of harmful smog-forming pollution, particulate matter, and air toxics. These emissions disproportionately impact low-income communities and communities of color, often located near major trucking corridors, ports, and distribution hubs. 

While trucks and buses only account for 5% of vehicles on the road, they are responsible for nearly 25% of total transportation sector greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, emissions from trucks are the fastest-growing source of climate-harming greenhouse gas emissions, and the number of truck miles traveled on the nation’s roads is forecast to continue to grow significantly in the coming decades. We are building momentum for electrifying our medium- and heavy-duty sectors – the polluting trucks and buses that disproportionately contribute to our ongoing climate and public health crisis and represent an environmental injustice. 

Just as vehicle pollution makes people sick, tailpipe emissions are a leading cause of the climate crisis, causing drought, fires, and extreme heat. The climate impacts of vehicle emissions compound the immediate health problems our communities already face from smog and ozone. 

New Mexico Clean Air is a group advocating for standards to reduce smog pollution in the state from tailpipes harming New Mexicans’ health and our climate. Advanced Clean Cars standards will make it easier for all New Mexicans to replace their dirty, polluting cars with low or zero-emission vehicles and improve air quality in our most impacted neighborhoods. By increasing the number of electric buses, pickup trucks, delivery trucks, and semi-trucks on our roads, Advanced Clean Trucks standards will help transform the freight industry to benefit our communities, especially those most harmed by air pollution. 

With Advanced Clean Cars and Trucks standards, we will have cleaner air for New Mexican families and take critical steps to address climate change. 

In 2021, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham directed the New Mexico Environment Department to adopt the 2022 Clean Cars standards. The City of Albuquerque joined the effort shortly after the governor’s direction. The first set of Clean Cars standards was adopted in May 2022. 

In July 2023, 17 organizations petitioned the Environmental Improvement Board and the Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Air Quality Control Board to build on the 2022 Clean Cars standards and maximize the public health, economic, and climate benefits of more zero-emission vehicles on our roads by adopting the Advanced Clean Cars and Trucks standards this year.

The petitioning organizations are CALSTART, Center for Civic Policy, Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy, Conservation Voters New Mexico, E2, Natural Resources Defense Council, New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light, Plug In America, Prosperity Works, Santa Fe Green Chamber of Commerce, Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter, Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, Together For Brothers, Western Environmental Law Center, Western Resource Advocates, 350 NM, and 350 Santa Fe.