EPA May Back Incentives

HICAGO — The Environmental Protection Agency’s top air-quality official said the agency may endorse an emerging congressional proposal for financial incentives to help buyers of heavy-duty trucks offset the expected higher cost of trucks coming in 2007 that meet EPA’s diesel-engine emission regulations.

Jeffrey Holmstead, EPA’s assistant administrator for air and radiation, did not identify which members of Congress were at work on the proposal, during a speech he gave here.

He said, however, that EPA acknowledged the certainty of another pre-buy of heavy-duty trucks before 2007, as fleets accelerated their purchases of the last of the new trucks that did not have new engines that comply with the emissions rules.