EPA Proposes Tighter Smog Controls

The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing tougher restrictions on the emissions that produce smog, a move that trucking interests say could set the stage for expensive new regulations on older trucks.

The regulation governs how much ozone is in the air.

Repeated exposure to ozone can permanently scar lung tissue, and the agency has new evidence that low levels of ozone damage crops and other vegetation. Ozone is the primary ingredient in smog. It is created in large part by the mixing of engine emissions and volatile organic compounds, including oxides of nitrogen, a byproduct of diesel combustion.

Current rules limit ozone to .08 parts per million in an eight-hour period in a specified area. The proposal would drop that to .07 to .075 ppm. EPA also wants comments on whether it should go even lower.

Other EPA regulations have gone a long way toward lowering NOx emissions from trucks, and the pending 2010 standard will reduce them to near zero. So there really is no way to reduce ozone by cutting emissions from modern trucks, experts say.

"Come 2010, there's nothing really left to address with new engines," said Glenn Kedzie, vice president of environmental affairs, American Trucking Associations.

But a tighter ozone standard would push some counties out of compliance with Clean Air Act standards. This in turn could push states toward requiring older trucks to be retrofitted with new clean air technology, said Allen Schaeffer, executive director of the Diesel Technology Forum.

That would not be a simple solution for states looking to meet the new ozone standard, but according to Kedzie, states might want to require add-ons in the expectation that carriers would buy newer equipment rather than buying the add-on. "When they do the math they'll say it makes more sense to buy a cleaner truck."

The American Road & Transportation Builders Association pointed out another problem: Non-compliance could cause federal highway funds to be cut off. "This creates a counterproductive cycle where new (air quality standards) delay critically needed improvements to the nation's infrastructure network," the association said in comments to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee

Even if retrofit requirements do come to pass – and it's no sure bet that they will – this rule will be a long time coming.

Kedzie outlined this schedule: a final rule March 12, 2008; the states would have until June 2009 to recommend areas for non-attainment; the EPA would have until June 2010 to confirm the areas; states would have until 2013 to decide how to comply; and it would be 2014 or 2015 before trucks would be affected – all presuming there are no legal challenges to the rule that would extend these deadlines even further.

That means eight more years of cleaner engines coming into the fleet, which would limit the impact even more, Kedzie said.

The proposal was published in the Federal Register June 11. Comments are due by Oct. 9. EPA scheduled public hearings in Los Angeles and Philadelphia on Aug. 30, and in Chicago and Houston on Sept. 5.