Editorial: The Diesel Engine Emissions Summit

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reparations for the Diesel Engine Emissions Summit in Phoenix on June 10 are in high gear. More than 600 participants have already registered for the summit and the summer meeting of the Technology & Maintenance Council, selling out all the rooms at the headquarters hotel, and requiring us to send later registrants to a close-by satellite hotel.

The summit will co-hosted by Transport Topics and TMC.

The table of speakers and panelists has also expanded in recent days, ensuring that the session will meet its primary goal: to prepare trucking for the major changes that will be coming to diesel fuel and engines in 2006, 2007 and 2010.

The session is designed to look at the need for engine and truck manufacturers to choose the technologies they will use to achieve the next round of emission reductions early enough for fleets to test the engines before they are required to buy them.

Unless that happens, we are sure to see a repeat of the chaos that swept the industry from late last year through early this year. Because there wasn’t sufficient time to test the engines that complied with October 2002 standards, fleets avoided buying the engines. Instead, they bought up all the older models they could find.

This led to a surge for the hard-hit truck-making industry in much of 2002, and a collapse of the market in early 2003. Only now are order books recovering, as fleets seem to be accepting the October engines.

New summit participants announced last week include Glenn Brown, chairman of Contract Freighters Inc., and Kevin Knight, chairman of Knight Transportation, who will join the panel to discuss carriers’ reaction to the new rules.

Dr. Gordon Andrews, the head of the Department of Fuel and Energy at the University of Leeds (England), will discuss global harmonization of emissions and fuel standards from a European perspective, while Kenneth Feith, senior scientist and policy adviser at EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, will present the U.S. view. Feith is also past chairman of the U.N. Executive Committee on Harmonization and Vehicle Regulations.

Gregory M. Scott, counsel of the Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers of America, will join the fuel distribution and housekeeping panel.

And Joel Szabat, deputy assistant secretary for transportation policy at the Department of Transportation, will represent DOT at the session.

In all, we believe key decision makers in the trucking industry need to attend this session. We’re sure you’ll find it time well spent.

This story appeared in the June 2 edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.

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