Testimony of the Rev. Dr. Terrence G. Gallagher offered to the 

EPA/DOT Public Hearing on 

Heavy-Duty Vehicle Fuel Economy & Global Warming Emission Standards 

Thursday, August 6, 2015 at the Palmer House Hilton, Chicago, IL 

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Good Afternoon, I am the Rev. Dr. Terry Gallagher and I appreciate the opportunity to speak 

with you today on the critical issue of the Heavy-Duty Vehicle Fuel Economy & Global Warming 

Emission Standards. I rise to speak today on behalf of Communities of Faith but most 

importantly on behalf of my grand kids and their peers across the globe. 

Allow me to begin with the observation that I am a bit of an odd duck. By that I mean that 

before I accepted the Call to Ministry, I spent 32 years in the Chemical Industry as an engineer 

and ultimately as a plant manager. So I will be speaking from that educational and experiential 

basis as well as from my ministry as a Public Theologian whose focus is centered entirely on 

Ecological Justice. 

My industrial career spanned the decades during which many of the significant environmental 

regulations came into existence. I have to confess, that as each new regulation rolled out to 

regulate some aspect of what industry could put in the air, water and soil, we in industry would 

set up a howl. We would wail and gnash our teeth while proclaiming that the EPA was simply 

trying to drive all American industry out of business. 

You know kind of like what you are hearing these days in response to these and other proposed 

standards that would reduce the amount of carbon pollution that we throw up into our air each 

day. 

But, here is the brutal truth. We didn't go out of business. We actually got better at doing what 

we were supposed to be doing all along which is manufacturing with excellence. In response to 

the restrictions on what could be released to the air, dumped in t he waters or buried 

underground, we had to get much better at controlling our manufacturing processes. As a 

result, our yields improved and our product quality improved. Some of the lesser 

manufacturers ran for foreign soil to avoid regulations but those who stayed got much better at 

doing what we do. We still grumbled about your agency but perhaps with a little less animosity. 

I understand that you all face growing criticisms for doing what you are intentionally purposed 

to do. I understand that daily you get threatened with budget cuts or get treated to the mindless sarcasm of a Senator with a snowball saying that the snowball proves that Cl imate Change 

is a hoax and so is your agency. I can understand that you feel underappreciated for your 

diligence in protecting the environment. 
I understand but I don't care and neither should you. You are doing your job. 

The protests and criticisms and baseless attacks from the greed based special interest groups 

are part & parcel of what will happen when you are doing your job right. This has been true for 

your agency from day 1 and will continue as long as there are earth systems that need 

protecting for the benefit of present and future generations. 

You know as well as I that the current fossil fuel burning path our society is on is incompatible 

with human civilization in the very near future. If our kids/grandkids are to have a future then 

the fossil fuels must stay right where they are- deep underground. 

My good friends at the Union of Concerned Scientists, whom I have a great deal of respect for, 

have conducted a study which concludes that: 

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The heavy-duty vehicle standards as proposed by the EPA and the National Highway Traffic 

Safety Administration are an important step in the right direction, but the urgent need for 

climate action makes it critical that the agencies act to reduce oil consumption and global 

warming emissions from this sector as quickly as technology and cost considerations will allow. 

UCS analysis shows that the technologies available to achieve a 40 percent reduction in fuel 

consumption can be incorporated into new trucks by 2025, rather than waiting until 2027. 

Doing so would save an additional 200,000 barrels of oil per day in 2035, and avoid an 

additional40 million metric tons of global warming emissions annually-equivalent to shutting 

down 12 coal-fired power plants. 

So while I applaud your efforts in developing the Heavy-Duty Vehicle Fuel Economy & Global 

Warming Emission Standards, I also want to tell you what should be an obvious conclusion. 

These standards are simply a start on the very necessary path to a carbon free future. 

In truth, it's a baby step that has taken too long to come into being. After all, the Supreme 

Court gave you the authority to regulate carbon way back in 2007. So I would ask that you bring 

a greater sense of urgency to your very necessary work. 

I know greater urgency in your implementation plans will undoubtedly incur greater wrath and 

increased attacks from the Senator with the snowball and his various colleagues and associated 

special interest groups. But being comfortable is not your job, your mandate is to protect the 

earth and its life systems. 

Every national science panel across the globe as well as international institutions such as the 

United Nations, World Bank & International Monetary Fund along with a growing number of 

corporations are warning that our existing path is unsustainable. 
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As a Christian ethicist, I can tell you there is absolutely no moral justification for us to destroy 

the potential of future generations to live simply so that we can stay comfortable and not 

change. There are no ethics that support our continuing to wreck the earth's life systems as we 

are currently doing. So whi le I commend your work on the Heavy-Duty Truck Fuel Economy and 

Global Warming Standards, much more is needed on our path to a sustainable transportation 

system on a much quicker time schedule. 

My grand kids and their peers from across the Globe are counting on you. 

Thanks for allowing me the opportunity of speaking with you this day.