Navistar Says EPA Favored SCR by Setting Guideline Illegally

This story appears in the June 15 print edition of Transport Topics.

Truck and engine manufacturer Navistar Inc. last week leveled new allegations against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, accusing the federal regulator of privately and illegally giving its competitors the green light to deploy a selective catalyst reduction emission control technology that could be implemented only with an “illegal relaxation” of EPA’s 2010 nitrogen oxide emission standard.

The new allegations were included in a 10-page document filed June 8 that opposed a request by several of Navistar’s competitors to be granted “friend of the court” status in Navistar’s petition for federal appeals court review, filed earlier this spring (click here for previous story).

“Navistar filed the petition be-cause EPA has been diverted from its environmental mission and somehow talked into an environmentally hostile action,” the Navistar document said.

Navistar’s court brief said that EPA “illegally accommodated SCR manufacturers outside of the public eye and allowed them to deploy an emission control technology that can only be implemented with a de facto and illegal relaxation of the NOx emission standard.”

Navistar has asked the court to review several issues related to EPA’s February 2009 memorandum giving engine makers guidance on SCR, after the agency had said years earlier that it did not believe SCR would be feasible.

The Warrenville, Ill., corporation, manufacturer of International trucks, said EPA skipped an important regulatory step in allowing SCR technology after expressing serious doubts in 2001 that it would work.

Navistar is the only manufacturer planning to use exhaust gas recirculation to meet the 2010 EPA NOx emissions standard, first spelled out in EPA’s 2001 heavy-duty truck rule. All other truck and engine manufacturers plan to use SCR, which requires a urea-water solution called diesel exhaust fluid.

In its recent document, Navistar specifically alleged that an attorney for the Engine Manufacturers Association on behalf of the SCR manufacturers “convinced EPA that EPA had no choice but to reverse course and conclude that SCR was a viable technology for meeting the 0.20 g NOx standard.”

“In reality, the SCR manufacturers who led the effort to get EPA to approve SCR and allow them to pollute with impunity are predominantly foreign manufacturers who previous to the 2001 rulemaking were using SCR technology in foreign countries,” Navistar said.

The SCR engine makers convinced EPA to change its mind, Navistar said, “not because [SCR] was cleaner, but because it was cheaper to deploy, since they had already developed it and used it elsewhere.”

Navistar said one of the reasons the SCR manufacturers sought EPA’s help was because they had “an obvious marketing problem — the unattractive necessity of truck drivers being required to locate and fill up with urea every 6,000-8,000 miles.”

Navistar said EPA avoided the public rulemaking process because it could not demonstrate that SCR technology was viable.

“Navistar further submits that the continued infeasibility of SCR is the reason why the SCR manufacturers and EPA never triggered the public hearings and/or afforded the due process mandated by Congress to reverse EPA’s prior rulemaking,” Navistar said.

An EPA spokeswoman declined comment on the new allegations.

Navistar, the largest U.S. manufacturer of medium-duty engines, entered the Class 8 engine market only recently. In March, the company introduced a 15-liter model, which combines the fuel-induction technology of its 11-liter and 13-liter models with the block and other basic components of a Caterpillar C15 power plant (click here for previous story).

Late last year, Navistar said it planned to take a “leadership role” in calling for a delay of full implementation of the 2010 emission mandates (click here for previous story).

But an EPA official said the agency had “absolutely no intention” of granting Navistar’s request (click here for previous story).

Rival manufacturers that plan to use SCR opposed Navistar’s June 1 petition in which they asked to be granted friend-of-court status to back EPA. They warned of potential “significant consequences” if EPA is barred from certifying engines using SCR.

Included in the joint filing were independent engine manufacturer Cummins Inc.; Daimler Trucks North America and its engine subsidiary Detroit Diesel Corp.; Volvo Group America and Volvo subsidiary Mack Trucks. Paccar Inc., which makes Kenworth and Peterbilt trucks, did not participate.

The SCR makers did not comment by press time on Navistar’s allegations and opposition granting them friend-of-court status.

“I can only say that Navistar must be in some traumatic difficulty, which is the only reason I can explain a tone like this in a court pleading,” said Patrick Raher, a Washington attorney representing the SCR manufacturers.

In a June 9 conference call on company earnings, Daniel Ustian, Navistar’s chief executive officer, did not shed any light on when Navistar’s EGR engine would be able to meet EPA’s 2010 emission cuts without the use of credits. He did say that emissions from Navistar’s EGR engine are not yet down to 0.2 g/bhp hour of NOx.

“We’ll be able to close that gap,” Ustian said. “It’s not all the way closed yet, and we have some plans how to do that . . . but we’re making progress.”

A Navistar spokesman said the company does not comment on pending court actions.

Staff Reporter Dan Leone contributed to this story.