Proposal to Remove All Pollution Limits for 'Glider' Trucks Still Not Withdrawn
July 28, 2018 - WASHINGTON— The Environmental Protection Agency late Thursday night abruptly withdrew its decision to stop enforcing production caps on super-polluting diesel “glider” trucks. The reversal comes just days after the D.C. Circuit 
Court ordered a stay of the non-enforcement decision following an emergency motion filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Environmental Defense Fund and Sierra Club.
“The utter lawlessness of Scott Pruitt’s gambit to foul our air with thousands more ultra-dirty trucks was obvious to all,” said Vera Pardee, senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute. “But Andrew Wheeler didn’t stop Pruitt’s last-gasp mayhem until the court stayed his hand.”
The withdrawal notice, signed by Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler, reverses former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s last-day-on-the job decision to allow companies to ignore the cap. Before filing the lawsuit last week, the Center and its allies had requested that Wheeler rescind Pruitt’s decision but received no response. Thursday’s notice came just days before the EPA’s deadline to defend its non-enforcement decision in court.
A “glider” is a diesel freight truck assembled by installing a used engine and powertrain in a new truck body. Because their engines were built under outdated pollution standards, the EPA estimates that glider trucks emit 20 to 40 times more smog-forming nitrogen oxide and soot-causing particulate matter than new trucks on the market.
Using the EPA’s own conservative estimates, every year of uncapped glider production could cause up to 1,600 premature deaths from fine-particulate-matter emissions alone.
The current law limits glider manufacturers to producing no more than 300 super-polluting glider vehicles per year, but the companies are free to produce unlimited glider trucks as long as they use engines meeting current emission standards.
However, Pruitt’s proposed 2017 rule would eliminate all limits on their production and declare them outside of the EPA’s regulatory authority.
“Wheeler still hasn’t withdrawn Pruitt’s unconscionable proposal to eliminate all pollution limits for these zombie trucks,” Pardee said. “Until he does, he and his predecessor are birds of a feather.”
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.6 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
Source: Center for Biological Diversity
Related Information - California Attorney General Leads Coalition in Suing EPA over Unlawful Suspension of 2016 Glider Rule Which Limits Production of Super-Polluting Freight Truck Diesel Engines
