Clean Air Crisis
Alarm bells ring in Washington over October emissions deadline.
OLIVER B. PATTON
WASHINGTON EDITOR
Engine makers and truck buyers are pushing alarm buttons in Washington, D.C., warning that the October deadline for cleaner engines could lead to disaster for the industry and its suppliers.
The message to Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency is that the engines are not ready, that the costs of proceeding far exceed the benefits, and that the remedy is a one-year delay of the emissions deadline.
So far, EPA is refusing to extend the deadline. The agency recently denied requests from Caterpillar and Detroit Diesel Corp. for an extension. The October deadline "should provide substantial emission reductions . . . and remains in the public interest," EPA said.
In early July, a group of 33 congressmen led by Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill., urged EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman to grant a delay so trucking companies can adequately test the engines that EPA has certified as clean.
At the meeting, EPA was "not receptive" to the idea of extending the deadline, LaHood spokesman Tim Butler said.
The agency did say, however, that it is willing to consider lowering the stiff penalties it has proposed for engines that do not meet the October standard, Butler said.
Under the proposal, which has not yet been made final, each engine that exceeds the limit of 2.5 grams of hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide is liable for fines ranging from $4,680 to $14,790.
On the legislative side, Butler said, there has been discussion of providing a tax credit to engine manufacturers to ease the burden of the penalties.
The dispute is over emissions requirements that emerged from a 1998 agreement between EPA and seven engine makers. In that agreement, the engine companies agreed to advance a 2004 emissions deadline to October 2002 as part of a settlement over violations of earlier emissions requirements.
Since then, however, the numbers have changed. Engine makers and truck buyers insist, and EPA acknowledges, that the new engines will cost more than originally expected. Besides the original cost — one truck manufacturer is looking at increases of up to $9,000 per truck — there are follow-on costs due to losses in fuel economy and new maintenance requirements, among others.
American Trucking Assns. told the agency that these new numbers mean that the costs of the rule far outweigh the benefits — "that the legal and factual premises for the (rule) must be considered fundamentally flawed."
To date, however, EPA has continued to insist that the industry has to live with these increases. "The Consent Decree expressly precludes higher costs as a basis for avoiding the Decree's obligations," EPA told DDC.
It remains to be seen if the political pressures being applied by engine makers and truck buyers will make a difference.
They do have leverage. LaHood's district includes Peoria, where Caterpillar is based. "Caterpillar is the number one employer in his district," said LaHood spokesman Butler.
LaHood told Whitman that if trucking companies are not given time to test the engines, they won't buy them — "resulting in thousands of layoffs across the country."
Also, industry sources cite the potential "ripple effect" of a no-buy decision, as production cutbacks move outward through truck supplier industries.
At the same time, it is not entirely clear how truck buyers will act come October. Trucking interests are not unanimous in their approach.
Members of the Truck Renting and Leasing Assn. buy trucks in quantity, and they do not have the option of replacing old equipment with newer used equipment, as some trucking companies may.
Says TRALA President Peter Vroom, "Much of (the cost of) this falls squarely in our laps."
Still, TRALA is keeping its powder dry. It would accept the one-year delay in the deadline, but has not signed on to ATA's effort to obtain it.
Another source who did not want to be identified said that some trucking operations may wind up ordering engines that do not meet the emissions requirements — and then perhaps paying some of the cost of the penalties. It may be cheaper to do that than to buy what many consider to be an unproven engine, the source said.
Further complicating the political equation are the differences among the engine manufacturers. As HDT went to press, only Cummins and Mack had EPA-certified engines — and the Cummins certification was being challenged in court by Caterpillar.
Meanwhile, clean air lobbyists are weighing in with their own agenda. The Clean Air Trust dubbed ATA and Caterpillar as "villains of the month" for July, for their "big-rig blitz" against tougher emissions standards.
"They've gone to the White House, they've gone to Congress, and they've gone to court," said executive director Frank O'Donnell. "The entire national effort to clean up dirty diesel trucks may be at risk."
TRALA's Peter Vroom said that the real risk is that no one will take the right lesson from this impasse. Throughout the process that led to this situation, there has been a shortage of information from engine manufacturers and from EPA, he said.
Truck purchasers have to be more involved in the standards-setting process — "because we are the ones who will suffer the pain."
The costs associated with the October deadline are real, he added, but "this is a cakewalk" compared to what could happen when the second phase of EPA's emission standards comes due in 2007..
