The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced today that it has closed its investigation into the Clean Truck Partnership, determining that key commitments made by several leading truck and engine manufacturers now sufficiently address earlier antitrust concerns and obviate the need for further enforcement action.
The FTC had raised several antitrust issues with the structure of the agreement, including:
- The requirement that manufacturers produce only zero-emission engines, even if the relevant CARB regulations were invalidated.
- A lack of mechanism preventing one manufacturer from enforcing these restrictions on another.
- The entrenchment of terms that lacked political accountability or opportunities for modification.
Adding to the uncertainty, federal legislation signed by President Trump revoked CARB’s waivers from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and manufacturers had distanced themselves from the Clean Truck Partnership.
To address these concerns, the FTC obtained written commitments from the manufacturers and the Truck & Engine Manufacturers Association (TEMA). These commitments include:
- A declaration that the Clean Truck Partnership is unenforceable, and that the manufacturers never have and never will enforce its terms against one another.
- A pledge from the manufacturers to act independently, uninfluenced by the restrictive provisions of the agreement when selling heavy-duty trucks.
- An agreement not to enter into any future restrictive arrangements with any U.S. state regulator that would allow cross-enforcement among competitors or bind manufacturers to regulatory limits that the regulator lacks authority to impose or enforce.
- A broader promise from TEMA not to negotiate or enter into similar agreements on behalf of its members in the future.
The Commission voted unanimously (3–0) to accept these commitments and formally close the investigation.
FTC Deputy Director of the Bureau of Competition, Taylor C. Hoogendoorn, described CARB’s regulatory overreach as “a major threat to American trucking” and expressed satisfaction that the manufacturers agreed to a “course correction.”
