California’s repeal of the private and drayage portions of the Advanced Clean Fleets regulation is now at the Office of Administrative Law, the last procedural step before those requirements come off the books.
OAL’s list of proposed regulations under review shows file 2026-0729-02, submitted by the California Air Resources Board and titled “Proposed Amendments to the ACF and LCFS Rulemaking.” The file does not appear on OAL’s recent actions list, which covers the past 45 days, so the office has neither approved nor disapproved it. The review list is current through August 28.
The filing satisfies a court-ordered deadline. Under the settlement in State of Nebraska et al. v. Steven S. Cliff and Rob Bonta, “CARB staff will submit that rulemaking action to California’s Office of Administrative Law (OAL) for approval no later than August 31, 2026.” The same settlement required CARB to bring a repeal proposal to its board by October 31, 2025.
The board acted on September of last year, voting to repeal the parts of the regulation applying to federal and private fleets, including the drayage requirements, while keeping requirements for state and local government fleets. As CARB described the vote at the time, the repeal was intended to reduce confusion for federal and private fleet operators.
The package before OAL repeals two sections of Title 13 of the California Code of Regulations: section 2014, the drayage truck requirements, and section 2015, the high priority and federal fleet requirements. It amends sections 2013 through 2013.4 and adds new sections 2013.5, 2013.6, and 2013.7, which carry the state and local government fleet provisions. It also amends section 95486.3 of Title 17, the Low Carbon Fuel Standard’s hydrogen refueling infrastructure crediting provision, which travels with the ACF changes in the same rulemaking.
Public agency fleets keep their obligations, on a longer schedule. The amendments extend the 50% zero-emission vehicle purchase requirement by three years and delay the 100% purchase requirement to 2030. The exemption for small fleets and designated low-population counties runs through 2030. Compliance flexibilities that had been drafted for public agency utilities now apply to all government agencies, and utilities gain expanded access to exemptions allowing combustion vehicle purchases when zero-emission alternatives are unavailable or unsuited to the fleet’s needs.
For private and drayage fleets, day-to-day operations change little, because the provisions being repealed have not been enforced. CARB agreed to hold off on enforcement of the drayage and high-priority fleet requirements pending a federal preemption waiver decision, an arrangement in place since the start of 2024, and then withdrew the waiver request on January 13, 2025. What OAL approval would change is the status of those requirements: registry obligations, zero-emission purchase schedules, and useful-life limits would end as legal requirements rather than remain as paused ones.
OAL generally has 30 working days to approve or disapprove a submitted regulation under Government Code section 11349.3, and it does not publish an expected decision date. If the office approves the package, the regulations are filed with the Secretary of State and the repeal takes effect on the schedule set by state law. Two other CARB rulemakings are pending at OAL alongside this one, on the cap on greenhouse gas emissions and on mandatory reporting of greenhouse gas emissions.
