NJEJA supports the Heavy-Duty Omnibus Rule proposed by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. However, just as with the previously proposed and enacted Advanced Clean Truck (ACT) Rule, NJEJA urges the state to develop and adopt strategies, rules, and laws that will guarantee that air pollution emissions reductions from heavy-duty vehicles occur in New Jersey EJ communities.

NJEJA supports the proposed Omnibus Rule because the organization recognizes that air pollution emitted by heavy-duty vehicles is a significant public health hazard to New Jersey communities, including EJ communities. It appears that a fully adopted Omnibus Rule would result in a general reduction in emissions from heavy-duty trucks and buses. But NJEJA also recognizes that that in a society such as ours, where systemic racism and classism is endemic, laws and public policies intended to help all communities need to contain a specific mechanism that will ensure their benefits are realized in communities Of Color and communities with low-income. These comments will discuss this unfortunate fact in more detail, use an EJ perspective to place the proposed Omnibus Rule in the larger context of climate and environmental policies, and provide recommendations to ensure EJ communities attain the relief from transportation-related air pollution that they desperately need.

NJEJA would also like to incorporate by reference, comments submitted by the Coalition for Healthy Ports on the proposed Omnibus Rule.