How $225,000 Can Help Secure a Pollution Loophole at Trump's E.P.A.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

This is another article about glider kits. We've talked about them before at DU. I'll find the link.

Retweeted by David Fahrenthold: https://twitter.com/Fahrenthold

Money, politics, allegations of academic fraud and a dirty-truck loophole: inside a deal E.P.A.'s Scott Pruitt has offered to "super-polluting trucks"

Link to tweet

How $225,000 Can Help Secure a Pollution Loophole at Trump’s E.P.A.

By ERIC LIPTON FEB. 15, 2018

CROSSVILLE, Tenn. — The gravel parking lot at the Fitzgerald family’s truck dealership here in central Tennessee was packed last week with shiny new Peterbilt and Freightliner trucks, as well as a steady stream of buyers from across the country.

But there is something unusual about the big rigs sold by the Fitzgeralds: They are equipped with rebuilt diesel engines that do not need to comply with rules on modern emissions controls. That makes them cheaper to operate, but means that they spew 40 to 55 times the air pollution of other new trucks, according to federal estimates, including toxins blamed for asthma, lung cancer and a range of other ailments.

The special treatment for the Fitzgerald trucks is made possible by a loophole in federal law that the Obama administration tried to close, and the Trump administration is now championing. The trucks, originally intended as a way to reuse a relatively new engine and other parts after an accident, became attractive for their ability to evade modern emissions standards and other regulations.

The survival of this loophole is a story of money, politics and suspected academic misconduct, according to interviews and government and private documents, and has been facilitated by Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, who has staked out positions in environmental fights that benefit the Trump administration’s corporate backers.

Edited: here you go, from LBN on October 23, 2017:

EPA plans to repeal emission standards for truck components

[Fred Sanders]

1. America as corrupt as any Banana Republic, except for the massively larger amount of the

bribes and the damage to the nation and planet only American corruption can inflict.

An anti-corruption law...does have even one exist in America?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. Trump Keeps Loophole That Allows Trucks To Vastly Exceed Emission Standards

Trump Keeps Loophole That Allows Trucks To Vastly Exceed Emission Standards

Ryan Felton
53 minutes ago

Here’s a familiar tale if you’ve followed the current administration in the White House. Former President Barack Obama tried to close an absurd loophole in federal law that would allow certain trucks to vastly (and we mean vastly) exceed emission standards. Current President Donald Trump—thanks to political gamesmanship and potentially shoddy academic work—is keeping the loophole alive.

That’s according to a whopper of a story from The New York Times today, which focuses on the sale of the trucks, known as “gliders,” because—as the Times puts it—“they are manufactured without engines and are later retrofitted with the rebuilt ones.” The loophole has been condemned from a vast array of businesses, including Volvo, trucking company Navistar, and UPS:

Gliders are popular among small trucking companies and individual truck owners, who say they cannot afford to buy or operate vehicles with new engines and modern emissions controls.

The trucks, which Fitzgerald claims burn less fuel per mile and are cheaper to repair, have been on the market since at least the 1970s. But after the federal government moved to force improvements in truck emissions, with standards that were first enacted during the Clinton administration and took full effect by 2010, gliders became a way for trucking companies to legally skirt the rules.

The trucks are cheaper to operate, the Times reports, but they “spew 40 to 55 times the air pollution of other new trucks, according to federal estimates, including toxins blamed for asthma, lung cancer and a range of other ailments.” ... One major player in the market is a company called Fitzgerald Glider Kits, and Fitzgerald welcomed Trump with open arms during his 2016 presidential campaign. The company even sells “Make Trucks Great Again” hats, the Times notes. But of course.

So what changed? The sort of swampy, insider-y Washington-type stuff that Trump championed so vociferously against during his campaign. ... The Fitzgerald family, it turns out, is politically connected. They’re friends with EPA-hater-turned-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, Republican congresswoman Diane Black of Tennessee, and Tennessee Technological University. ... The University, according to the Times, produced a story which actually minimized pollution problems associated with gliders. How interesting. ... The funder of the study? Fitzgerald.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. University Pulls Back on Pollution Study That Supported Its Benefactor

Retweeted by David Fahrenthold: https://twitter.com/Fahrenthold

Tennessee Tech asks the E.P.A. to please not rely on a study from Tennessee Tech on polluting trucks that was paid for by a local truck maker

Link to tweet

University Pulls Back on Pollution Study That Supported Its Benefactor

By ERIC LIPTON FEB. 21, 2018

WASHINGTON — The president of a Tennessee state university, under fire for an academic study on truck emissions that was paid for by a local trucking company, has asked federal officials to disregard the study, at least for now, in its review of pollution regulations that could benefit the company. ... In a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency, Philip B. Oldham, the president of Tennessee Technological University, warned that “experts within the university have questioned the methodology and accuracy” of the study, and that an investigation was being conducted into its findings.

The letter was dated Monday and sent to Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the E.P.A., as well as Representative Diane Black, Republican of Tennessee, who had pushed Mr. Pruitt and the E.P.A. to approve a change in regulations that would exempt certain heavy-duty trucks from a requirement to install modern emissions control systems.

One of the main beneficiaries of such a change would be Fitzgerald Glider Kits of Byrdstown, Tenn., the country’s largest manufacturer of so-called glider trucks, which are equipped with rebuilt engines that do not have modern emissions controls. The company paid for the study, and had offered to build a new research center for Tennessee Tech on land owned by the company.

The study, which concluded that pollution from glider trucks was no worse than from trucks with modern emissions controls, was cited by Mr. Pruitt when he announced in November he would make the regulatory change requested by Ms. Black. Last June, Mr. Oldham had signed a letter endorsing the study.

A version of this article appears in print on February 22, 2018, on Page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: University Pulls Back on Pollution Study That Supported Benefactor.