U.S. EPA's Holmstead denies 'rollback' of 2006/7 rules

Diesel Fuel News, Sept 30, 2002 by Jack Peckham

Washington, D.C. -- U.S. EPA assistant administrator Jeff Holmstead flatly contradicts assertions by several "green" groups that EPA is planning to "roll back" 2006/7 clean-diesel limits via proposed emissions trading between highway and non-road engines.

"I'm puzzled by that," Holmstead told Diesel Fuel News in an impromptu press conference immediately following his appearance at EPA's "federal advisory committee act" (FACA) diesel rule review meeting here.

Rather than the "rollback" as some "green" groups charge, any eventual trading rule will "result in lower emissions," he said. "We have no interest in changing the NOx/PM highway emissions limits," adding that "we're planning a very aggressive non-highway [diesel] rule" as well.

Holmstead outlined one hypothetical example of how emissions trading between highway and non-road diesels might work: An engine maker might, for example, get an extra six months to achieve the EPA highway diesel limits only if the engine maker accelerates non-road reductions that "more than offset" the temporary emissions shortfall on the highway engine, he said.

While the concept of diesel fuel sulfur credits trading between highway and non-road still has "legal issues" to be worked out, Holmstead specifically said the agency isn't ruling this out.

Meanwhile, at the Hart World Fuels Conference here, EPA' s mobile sources director Margo Oge gave still another hypothetical example of how emissions trading between highway and non-road potentially might work.

An engine maker might, for example, over-comply with the 0.2 grams/brake horsepower-hour NOx limit on highway diesel 2007-2010 limits, then transfer this over-compliance to a future non-road engine that also might face a similarly tough NOx limit, she explained.

* Getting To 0.1 Grams: Problematic

However, one major engine maker here told us that engine makers don't even know how to hit EPA's 0.2 grams NOx limit, let alone the 0.1 grams NOx limit that Oge used in her hypothetical example. Some other, more practical emissions trading scheme must be developed to be of any use, this engine maker told us.

Meantime, California Public Interest Research Group (PIRG, which traces its historic roots to Ralph Nader, "Green Party" presidential candidate) and American Lung Association-San Francisco charged in a published San Francisco Chronicle "Letter to the Editor" that U.S. EPA is plotting to use highway/non-road emissions credit trading to trash clean-diesel rules.

"Engine makers could then earn credits by exceeding the [non-road] standards and use the credits to avoid tough emission reductions required for trucks and buses," the "greens" claimed in their Chronicle letter.

Echoing Holmstead's comment, EPA's press office also flatly denied this claim.