New trouble brewing for US EPA's 2007/2010 diesel rules; trucks like SCR

Diesel Fuel News, June 23, 2003 by Jack Peckham

Phoenix -- American Trucking Associations' Technology & Maintenance Council (TMC) members kicked off what looks like a campaign to delay implementation of U.S. EPA's 2007/2010 ultra-clean highway diesel rules, and many signaled a preference for selective catalytic reduction (SCR) over EPA-favored nitrogen oxides ([NO.sub.x]) traps.

The call for delay came at the close of ATA/TMC's first-ever "Diesel Engine & Emissions Summit" here, drawing some 600 trucking, engine, vehicle and technology company officials, as well as U.S. EPA officials.

While not yet an official ATA-endorsed position, the TMC call nevertheless sends a strong signal that trucking companies seem likely to push for a delay or possibly some alternative clean-diesel incentive scheme on multiple fronts, starting with U.S. EPA.

Anxiety is building because engine makers say they must decide by year-end 2003 or early 2004 on which 2007-compliant technologies to pursue, in order to have enough time for field trials under worst-case conditions. Further worries are building over possible misfueling or cheating during the 80% ULSD/20% 500-ppm sulfur diesel fuel phase-in during 2006-2010, which could wreck sulfur-sensitive catalysts.

Based on engine-maker statements at this conference, there's no clear technology winner -- and lack of consensus potentially could stall aggressive oil company/diesel retailer investment in, for example, urea refueling infrastructure to support selective catalytic reduction (SCR).

While EPA assistant administrator Jeff Holmstead once again repeated the claim that EPA is "technology neutral" on SCR or [NO.sub.x] traps or anything else for 2007/2010 emissions control, he also repeated EPA's long-standing concerns: "We need assurance that urea is available nationwide and the engine maker must ensure you can't operate the engine without urea," Holmstead said.

He also pointed out that "with SCR it's the truck owner-operator who has the responsibility, but if it's a [NO.sub.x] adsorber then it'd be invisible to the owner-operator." However, as one diesel summit participant pointed out to us here, if many truck owner-operators find they're forced to shut down in the middle of nowhere with no urea, then this could spark an anticlean-diesel trucking rebellion that could turn into a political firestorm, threatening billions of dollars of clean-diesel investments, not to mention the uncountable sums of political capital invested in developing and defending the EPA rules. So far, neither of EPA's twin concerns about urea has been proven solved.

On a related front, Holmstead didn't indicate that EPA sees any reason to panic over the 2007 deadline. "We believe the 2007 rule is well-designed for sufficient lead time for technical development, for engine manufacturers and for your industry," he told the ATAITMC summit at the opening morning session.

Another encouraging note: "We're interested in working to have 15-ppm sulfur diesel corridors available for long-term testing" of catalyzed systems well in advance of 2006, he added. EPA's voluntary diesel retrofit program to date has been leading this effort (see Diesel Fuel News 6/9/03, p20).

But despite Holmstead's optimism at the start, the mood had changed by day's-end. Probably best summing-up the consensus view here was Contract Freighters Inc. (CFL) CEO Glenn Brown: "My impression of this summit is: I felt much better before I came."

In a post-summit interview, ATA President Bill Graves (former Republican governor of Kansas) told us that "plan A" is "to do everything to comply in a timely manner and have EPA as part of that process - we need to understand them as they need to understand us." Following that, "plan B" is "to dialog with EPA on ways to deal with the time-frame," Graves told us. But at least for now, there isn't any "plan C" such as going to Congress to talk about delays or tax incentives for clean-diesel investments, he said. Follow-up ATA-sponsored diesel emissions mini-conferences this fall and next spring potentially could develop ideas further, he added.

If a delay push fails to sway EPA (which seems probable, given EPA's ferocious defense of its clean-diesel rules despite lawsuits and congressional threats) then court and congressional pushes could follow. But at least one clean-diesel technology developer here privately told us there's reason to suspect that "marketoriented" Republican administrative appointees at EPA potentially could buy-into some partial, temporary 2007 delay in exchange for some incentives-based, early-introduction clean-diesel fleet scheme, in advance of 2007.

But the track record for winning EPA delays isn't promising. Truckers earlier failed to convince EPA to delay the October 2002 "pull-ahead" deadlines for truck engines meeting EPA's 2004 limits of 2.5 grams/brake horsepower-hour on [NO.sub.x] and hydrocarbons (HC). The truckers claimed that these "pull-ahead" engines -- mostly employing exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) -- weren't widely tested for sufficient mileage/durability prior to introduction, which triggered a huge "pre-buy" of trucks not meeting these "cleaner" standards.