House Panel Probes EPA's Actions

The Environmental Protection Agency is under investigation by the House Commerce Committee over its handling of claims that diesel engine manufacturers cheated on federal emissions tests. A settlement of the dispute led to the largest environmental penalty ever imposed in U.S. history.

While the committee began looking into the matter early last year, it has apparently stepped up its activity since a settlement with the engine makers was drafted in October. There has been no previous word of an investigation.

"At this point, though it is an investigation, we are just asking questions," said Eric Wohlschlegel, a committee staff member.

The Commerce Committee’s inquiry began last January, when EPA first started issuing "conditional certificates of conformity" to the manufacturers for their engines. The agency claimed the companies were using electronic controls that enabled engines to pass federal emissions tests, but maximize fuel economy and as a result emit much more nitrous oxide under normal highway operating conditions (TT, 2-2-98, p. 1).

The House panel’s inquiry goes to the heart of charges by the six engine makers that EPA knew about and condoned the strategies used to meet emissions tests long before 1997, when the agency claimed it learned the problem was wide-spread.

The manufacturers involved are: Caterpillar Inc., Cummins Engine Co., Detroit Diesel Corp., Mack Trucks, Navistar International Transportation Corp. and Volvo Truck Corp.

Rep. Tom Bliley (R-Va.), chairman of the Commerce Committee, sent a letter to the EPA last February in which he expressed concern about the length of time it took to uncover the problem:

I am troubled that it took the agency this long to discover that higher emissions were associated with the new engine technology and I believe it is necessary to establish precisely when and how EPA learned that such technology could result in NOx (nitrous oxide) emission levels above those measured by EPA’s FTP (federal test procedure)."

His committee, which oversees the EPA and its implementation of Clean Air Act standards, has focused much of its questioning on how much EPA knew about the strategies and what it did in response.

EPA has maintained — both in documents provided to the Commerce Committee and in a letter to Transport Topics (TT, 12-28-98, p. 1) — that it was never told it about the electronic controls used to pass the emissions tests. Officials said they had indications from outside parties that the diesel engines were using emissions controls that increased nitrous oxide in highway driving conditions for many years, "but did not find indications of the widespread use of these strategies until 1997."

However, in correspondences between the EPA and the committee, EPA acknowledged that in 1990 a company told it about a competitor’s use of controls to limit emissions under test conditions. EPA says it investigated the company, but did not discover anything unusual.

For the full story, see the Jan. 11 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.