The American Trucking Associations has filed a brief in support of Detroit Diesel’s suit against the U.S. government over the October 2002 emissions regulations.

The Detroit Diesel suit is one of many legal, administrative and lobbying actions currently under way as the Oct. 1 deadline draws near, with only one engine maker to have an engine certified to meet the new standards and continuing questions about costs, fuel economy and reliability of the new engines.
ATA filed a brief on the behalf of motor carriers, most of whom are small businesses, “who will ultimately bear the burden of EPA’s miscalculations with respect to the increased cost, unavailability and unreliability of the subject engines, despite the fact that none of them were responsible for the acts which EPA asserted gave rise to the consent decree.”
The brief goes over the background of the situation, in which consent decrees signed by the engine manufacturers in 1998 “pulled ahead” 2004 emissions standards by 15 months. The brief notes that the court does have the ability to modify those decrees “when changed factual conditions make compliance with the decree substantially more onerous ... when a decree proves to be unworkable because of unforeseen obstacles ... or when enforcement of the decree without modification would be detrimental to the public interest.”
ATA says because many trucking companies are either pre-buying engines before the new rules kick in or delaying buying trucks, the emissions reductions achieved will not be as great as those sought by the EPA with the new regulations. In addition, the brief notes, the “pull ahead” provisions also will have the unintended effect of harming small trucking companies that could not afford to pre-buy and who must purchase the first generation EGR-equipped engines as their existing fleet requires replacement. With more than 80 percent of the trucking industry consisting of small fleets, operating on razor-thin margins, ATA says, this would be detrimental to the public interest.
As far as factual changes, when the EPA proposed its non-compliance penalties earlier this year, the estimated costs for the new engines were much, much higher than the estimates the agency came up with back in 1998. In addition, the trucking industry is still suffering the effects of a recession that did not exist back then.
“Detroit Diesel is saying that EPA did not have a full understanding of the consent decrees, the conditions in the industry have drastically changed, and the current consent decree pathway is not in the public interest,” says ATA Assistant General Counsel Glen Kedzie. “More recent data indicates there’s a better solution.”
For instance, Kedzie says, one possible solution would give fleet customers additional time to field test the new technology engines. Another one would require engines to meet tougher emission reductions in the future in exchange for lower emissions reductions up front.
“There’s options out there that should be explored that EPA is not willing to explore,” Kedzie says.