Budget Would Cut Funding for Emissions Reductions

This story appears in the April 22 print edition of Transport Topics.

President Obama has proposed dramatic cuts in the federal funding that helps truckers buy equipment to reduce diesel emissions, but called for significant increases for research into new vehicle technologies.

Obama’s fiscal year 2014 budget for the vehicle technologies program would boost funding 79%, putting spending at $575,000, compared with $320,966 in 2012.

The research program run by the U.S. Department of Energy includes the SuperTruck — the competition between truck and engine makers to produce a Class 8 vehicle that increases fuel economy by 50% by 2015.

“It’s always great when there’s recognition that technology advancements are critical to trucking [in order] to raise the bar in improving fuel efficiency,” said Glen Kedzie, energy and environmental affairs counsel to American Trucking Associations. “I can’t recall any president in the past talking about truck fuel efficiency.”

Released April 10, the budget uses 2012 as a base year for all federal spending because sequestration — the automatic budget cuts that kicked in when Obama and Congress failed to agree on deficit reduction — left uncertainty as to 2013 appropriations and spending levels.

However, most highway construction and safety programs are protected from the cuts because they are supported by the Highway Trust Fund, and under federal law, trust funds are exempt from sequestration.

On the diesel side, there was disappointment for those working on the emissions and idling reduction program that has provided millions of dollars’ worth of grants to drayage haulers to retrofit older trucks or buy new ones, and to long-haul carriers to buy auxiliary power units to heat and cool truck cabs without running the engine.

Obama’s budget plan cuts grant funding by 80%, reducing the 2014 allocation to $6 million — compared with $30 million in 2012.

Since 2008, when the grant program began, $567 million has been pumped into the transportation sector under DERA — the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act of 2005 — which is administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The cutback “will nearly decimate one of the nation’s most successful clean-air programs,” Allen Schaeffer, executive director of the Diesel Technology Forum, said in a statement. The forum is a nonprofit organization that promotes awareness about diesel engines, fuel and technology.

“The president’s request will mean that state and local agencies will now need to compete for smaller funding resources to assist fleets with their purchase of idle reduction technologies,” said Terry Levinson, an expert in the emissions and idle reduction field and senior analyst at Energetics Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm.

DERA helped states meet clean-air mandates by giving grants for idling-reduction equipment for school buses and heavy trucks — and even locomotives and ferries, Levinson said.

For example, last year Wisconsin had about $200,000 in DERA grant funds to give out and truckers had to compete for those with other applicants such as school districts and construction-crane operators, said Jessica Lawent, who directs Wisconsin’s DERA grant program.

“We would definitely be severely impacted if it was only $6 million total nationally,” she said, referring to the current budget proposal.

Wisconsin also has a diesel emissions reduction program of its own that is funded by a 2-cent-per-gallon levy that’s included in the state’s 39.2-cent diesel tax.

The proposed reduction in DERA grant money is unfortunate, because there is still much progress to be made in reducing diesel emissions, said David Orton, marketing and communications manager at Cascade Sierra Solutions, a nonprofit that processes DERA grants for fleets.

“To cut off the financing will slow that rate down significantly at a time when greenhouse gases and global warming are on the rise,” Orton said.

EPA said that Obama’s budget reflects DERA’s success and the program’s need to change.

DERA grants helped retrofit or replace 14,000 diesel engines in 2008 alone, but, today, DERA’s impact is diminished because emissions reductions will occur even without grants, as older trucks are scrapped and “new, cleaner engines become the norm,” the agency said.

Future DERA grants will be targeted to “communities in a limited set of high-exposure areas such as near ports and freight-distribution hubs,” EPA said.