A House subcommittee chairman said last week he plans to hold a hearing on the Environmental Protection Agency’s October 2002 deadline for cleaner diesel truck engines, while an EPA official said there is no reason to extend that increasingly criticized date.

Officials of several of the nation’s largest trucking companies told Transport Topics they are going to buy fewer than normal or no 2003-model Class 8 tractors because of concern over how the new generation of cleaner-burning diesel engines will perform.