EPA to Proceed With Diesel Sulfur Rule

The Bush administration’s Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday it was moving ahead with new rules from the Clinton administration to cut diesel fuel pollution from trucks and buses by 95% starting in 2006 (model year 2007), Reuters reported.

Although the regulations were announced in the waning days of Clinton’s term as president, they were put on hold by the Bush team pending a general review of Clinton’s late-term policy orders.

But EPA Administrator Christie Whitman said she has directed that her agency move forward on schedule with its rule, which aims to cut diesel pollution by 95% in model year 2007 heavy-duty trucks and buses, and lower the sulfur content of diesel fuel by June 2006.

(For full coverage of this issue, see the Jan. 29 issue of Transport Topics, p.1).

Whitman said the administration determined that this action should not be delayed, to protect public health and the environment.

However, the trucking industry saw the decision as something that could imperil fuel supplies.

American Trucking Associations President Walter B. McCormick Jr. said that “EPA has failed to address our concerns that the diesel fuel supply will be adequate and that proper distribution systems will be in place.”

He said his trade group was “concerned about the growing patchwork quilt of boutique fuels across the country that impedes the uninterrupted supply and availability of diesel fuel.”

And he warned that the underlying technology on which the EPA rule is based has not yet developed an extensive track record. “Questions about the feasibility of the technology create uncertainty in our industry, and are compounded by questions about the reliability…This uncertainty could have a significant impact on the daily operations of trucking companies.”

Whitman said the rule allows significant lead time for manufacturers and refineries to meet the reductions, Reuters noted.

lean air activists and a number of industry groups had pushed for the new diesel rule, Reuters added, saying the sharp reductions in allowable diesel pollution would both save lives and increaase production of cleaner-burning big rigs and buses.

The oil refining industry had balked at the timing and the extent of the new requirements for cutting sulfur in diesel.

This was the second major clean-air action this week that affects the trucking industry’s future. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court upheld EPA authority to set clean air standards without taking into effect the compliance costs, rejecting a legal assault from business groups led by ATA.

(Click here for the full press release.)