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WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Monday proposed strict new limits for pollution from buses, vans, tow-trailers and other heavy trucks — for the first time in more than 20 years, tightening exhaust pipe standards for the biggest pollutants on the road.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s new draft rule requires heavy-duty trucks to reduce their nitrogen dioxide emissions by 90 percent by 2031. Nitrogen dioxide is linked to lung cancer, heart disease and premature death.

The EPA also announced plans to slightly reduce truck emissions of carbon dioxide, a climate-changing greenhouse gas. The new rules on nitrous oxide pollution apply to trucks from model year 2027. From model year 2024, carbon dioxide rules will apply for trucks.

The truck pollution rule is the latest in a series of new pollution policies under President Biden that seeks to reduce emissions that have dangerously warmed the planet and reestablish environmental standards weakened by President Donald J. Trump.

Vice President Kamala Harris is slated for a host of other federal clean transportation actions, including spending $5.5 billion to help states buy low- or zero-emissions public transit buses and $17 million to replace underserved diesel school buses with electric versions. jointly announced the offer. communities.

Late last year, the EPA tightened standards on automobile pollution and announced the new rules governing methane, a climate-warming gas leaking from oil and gas wells. The agency is expected to introduce new restrictions on greenhouse gases and greenhouse gases this year. industrial institution released by power stations.

The administration cites the truck rule announced Monday as the centerpiece of Mr. Biden’s environmental justice agenda because many communities of color are located next to highways and are subject to high levels of pollution.

“Seventy-two million people are estimated to live near truck shipping routes in America, and they are more likely to be people of color and lower incomes,” said EPA administrator Michael S. Regan. “These overburdened communities are directly exposed to pollution that causes respiratory and cardiovascular problems, among other serious and costly health effects. These new standards will drastically reduce hazardous pollution by leveraging the latest advances in vehicle technologies in the trucking industry as we move towards a zero-emissions transportation future.”

Public health experts welcomed the move. “Cleaning the trucks is a critical step towards achieving the president’s vision that is not only about environmental justice but also moonlighting cancer,” said Paul Billings, senior vice president of the American Lung Association. “Diesel gas is a known carcinogen.”

According to EPA estimates, the new limits will prevent 2,100 premature deaths, 6,700 hospitalizations and emergency room visits, 18,000 cases of asthma in children, 78,000 lost work days and 1.1 million lost days of school by 2045.

The agency estimates the economic benefits of the rule could be up to $250 billion, and said those benefits would “exceed its costs by billions of dollars.”

But truckers and manufacturers say the rule is too strict and costly, and compliance could lead to higher prices fluctuating in the economy.

“This new standard may not be technologically viable,” said Jed Mandel, president of the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association, an industry group. “We are concerned about the cost. There is the potential for negative impacts on the economy and employment. Nobody wants to see union jobs laid off. Regular lunch bucket, blue collar workers.”

Jay Grimes, federal affairs manager for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, said the new restrictions will be particularly troublesome for small truckers, which he says make up 90 percent of the industry.

“Since the beginning of the pandemic, we’ve seen the daily efforts of truckers to keep the supply chain stable,” said Mr. Grimes. “Higher prices on the small business side will be passed on to consumers in the supply chain.”

The federal government last updated its truck emissions rule in 2001, when the EPA required commercial trucks to reduce their nitrogen dioxide emissions by 95 percent over 10 years. The agency said this contributed to a 40 percent reduction in national nitrogen dioxide emissions. He estimates the new rule will contribute to a 60 percent reduction in emissions by 2045.

The EPA has named the new rule the first of a three-phase “Clean Trucks Plan,” a series of clean air and climate change regulations over the next three years designed to reduce pollution from trucks and buses and accelerate the transition to the future of tomorrow. all-electric, zero-pollution vehicles.

After President Biden’s first year trying to push the ambitious climate law through Congress, just to see you stopmanagement is using regulatory machinery to try to prevent pollution.

The EPA is working on new limits for automobile pollution, which will be announced next year, which it hopes will accelerate the transition to electric vehicles. Mr. Biden has pledged that by 2030, half of all new cars sold in the United States will be electric vehicles.

Climate experts said the new truck regulations will reduce pollution that harms human health, but won’t do much to reduce emissions that warm the planet.

The proposed regulations will require some trucks with 17 of 33 heavy-duty truck categories to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions. This is designed to increase sales of all-electric trucks in the United States from less than 1,000 in 2020 to about 1.5 percent of total truck sales, or about 10,000 trucks, by 2027.

But experts said future trucking rules would need to be much stricter to put the United States on the path to all-electric trucks.

“It’s great to see the rule achieve a 90 percent reduction in air pollution in heavy-duty vehicles while also opening the door to reducing greenhouse gas pollution,” said Drew Kodjak, executive director of the International Council for Clean Transport. a research institution. “But we have something called climate change and we need to start using electrification in the heavy-duty truck industry. My major concern is that the proposal will not do that as written.”

Advocates of warehouse workers, many of whom are constantly exposed to diesel pollution, said they wanted regulations calling for the replacement of diesel-fueled trucks with electric or zero-emissions vehicles.

“Reducing emissions anywhere is good,” said Yana Kalmyka, organizer of Warehouse Workers for Justice. “However, if you are considering a community with tens of thousands of trucks passing through it per day, electrification is the only solution. The rule does not address other industrial truck pollutants such as soot, and we know that black and brown communities face cumulative loads of these pollutants.”

Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gases produced by the United States. 29 percent of the country’s total emissions.

The EPA said it plans to establish another greenhouse gas rule for trucks, beginning in the 2030 model year, that will be “significantly more powerful” than current standards and designed to accelerate the transition to fully electric trucks.

Waiting a few more years to implement the next greenhouse gas standards for trucks is wrong. “We just don’t have time,” said electric vehicle expert Margo Oge, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality from 1994 to 2012. “My hope is that they will use this time now to strengthen the standard.”

The rule, announced Monday, will be open to public comment for 46 days, and the EPA is expected to complete it by the end of 2022.