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Q&A: EMA’s Jacqueline Gelb Talks Legislation, Regulation
Highway Bill, NOx, GHG3 and DEF Dominate H2 for EMA
Key Takeaways:
- Jacqueline Gelb became EMA president in March and plans more congressional engagement after succeeding longtime President Jed Mandel.
- EMA says manufacturers need regulatory certainty on NOx, greenhouse gas Phase 3 and DEF flexibility to plan technology, pricing and compliance.
- EMA is awaiting EPA’s 2027 NOx rule and pressing Congress on highway reauthorization, right to repair, autonomous vehicles and infrastructure funding.
Jacqueline Gelb joined the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association as president in March.
A longtime advocate in Washington for trucking stakeholders — including carriers, dealers and now original equipment manufacturers — Gelb replaced Jed Mandel, who ended a quarter of a century as EMA president in September 2025.
Gelb — the trade group’s first full-time employee — sat down with Transport Topics May 28 to discuss what the second half of 2026 has in store for EMA, nitrogen oxide and greenhouse gas Phase 3 regulation, the highway bill and diesel exhaust fluid, among other things.
TT: It doesn’t seem all that long ago we were chatting about your ambitions for the American Truck Dealers. How did you end up joining EMA?
Gelb: I’m very familiar with the organization. I worked with the organization when I was at the American Trucking Associations and at ATD. It’s like going back home, going back full circle, back into the manufacturing space. It just seemed like a natural fit.
This was not in the cards. This was something of an opportunity of being able to bring my experience from ATA and ATD over to EMA, but also really trying to make sure that all three organizations and other organizations we work with in the industry, all of us are kind of swimming together, collaborating, trying to bring all of those interests together so we can speak with one voice as the truck industry.
TT: Jed Mandel held this position for such a long time. What might be different with you at the helm of EMA?
Gelb: What you’re going to be seeing is that EMA is going to be more engaged on the congressional side. That’s my background at the end of the day. That’s how I came into this industry.
TT: Now that you’ve settled back in, what is EMA focusing on in the second half of 2026?
Gelb: The big focus is still on nitrogen-oxide regulations. We’re waiting for the Environmental Protection Agency 2027 NOx rule changes to be published in the Federal Register. We’ve been engaged in conversations with the EPA on that and engaged with the industry on that. That’s something that the entire industry as a whole is waiting to see. I think that helps in regards to: What does 2027 look like? What does pricing look like? What’s coming down that pipe on the technological advancement side?
TT: But there’s also plenty on the legislative agenda for you to apply your skills to, right?
Gelb: Congress is pretty active on a handful of bills right now that we’re engaging on. We have a highway surface transportation reauthorization bill that needs to get done by Sept. 30. That’s been a big focus for EMA.
Brian Antonellis of Fleet Advantage discusses how fleet leaders should be thinking about capital planning with the 2027 NOx emissions rules on the horizon. Tune in above or by going to RoadSigns.ttnews.com.
TT: What in the bill in particular is EMA focusing on?
Gelb: Right to repair. We’ve been engaging on that. We want to make sure we get it right there. We don’t want to be too punitive to where it hurts our customers, it hurts our dealers, it hurts us as the manufacturers from an innovation standpoint. Making sure that we continue to have a framework for autonomous vehicles. And then also making sure that it provides a long-term funding plan for highways and bridges. EMA’s not just on-highway tractor manufacturers. We also have construction equipment manufacturers who are members. For those members, it’s really important because their equipment is what gets used by state DOTs to be able to make those new investments in infrastructure.
TT: EMA remains engaged on the regulatory front, though. In March, EMA intervened with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to confirm the major questions doctrine applies to the GHG Phase 3 rule rollback. Why?
Gelb: The real reason why we ended up intervening in this case is that manufacturers need certainty. We speak about that a lot because of the size of our market, how planning is done for trucks and the time and investment that goes into bringing new technology to the marketplace and validating that. Manufacturers need a long timeline to kind of line up for compliance purposes. And the big thing we didn’t want was this kind of swinging back and forth. And so, we intervened to make sure that we had some certainty in this.
TT: Another EPA initiative with EMA support involves diesel exhaust fluid flexibility, correct?
Gelb: The EMA stance is that we can’t have space where DEF is eliminated. DEF has got to be part of these systems for fuel efficiency, for component health. We don’t want catastrophic situations. But is there an opportunity to provide flexibility regulatorily or user flexibilities to eliminate future downtime by being able to eliminate derates so [drivers or farmers are] not stranded on the side of the road or stranded out in a remote field somewhere? Absolutely. From our standpoint, that’s where we’ve been engaging with EPA through the technical side on their guidance of making sure it strikes that right tone. This EPA doesn’t want to be overly burdensome, but we also don’t want the inverse of where [a carrier is] bringing a truck in, and it’s in the dealership for a while. We always just say a truck not moving is a truck that’s not making money.
