The Clean Air Trust this week named the American Trucking Associations and Caterpillar the clean air "villains of the month" for July for their efforts to push back tougher emissions standards scheduled to go into effect this October.

"Caterpillar and the trucking association have teamed up to form what might be described as an axle of evil," said Frank O'Donnell, executive director of the Trust. "They've gone to the White House, they've gone to Congress, and they've gone to court," said O'Donnell. “The entire national effort to clean up dirty diesel trucks may be at risk."
The October emissions standards were agreed to by diesel engine companies that signed a consent decree in 1998 to settle a federal lawsuit alleging that they had evaded emissions standards by creating engines that put out more pollution in highway use than in the start-and-go, city-type driving measured by the EPA.
So far, Cummins is the only manufacturer top have an engine certified by the EPA as meeting the new standards. Caterpillar, which has said it cannot meet the new standards until next year, has gone to court, seeking to have EPA's approval of the Cummins engine invalidated, a move the Clean Air Trust compares to “as if WorldCom, having been exposed for accounting fraud, responded by trying to get the government to punish AT&T for being successful.”
The ATA has filed a petition with the EPA as well as asked the Bush Administration to delay implementing the rules, saying the type of new engines required by the EPA are untested, unproven, and pose a serious threat to the industry's ability to continue to move America's freight efficiently and to keep the U.S. economy going. The extra cost of the new engines is many times more than the EPA estimated, and there are continuing concerns about fuel economy and reliability.
Caterpillar and ATA have also been lobbying members of Congress, the Trust notes. In late June, about 70 members of Congress signed a letter to EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, seeking a one-year delay of the regulations.