Environmental Group Urges EPA to Maintain Glider Kit Standards
Photo: Tom Berg
">Environmental advocates, state attorneys general and others are urging the Environmental Protection Agency to maintain the previous administration's regulation restricting the use of glider kits under the Greenhouse Gas Phase 2 rules, calling the current efforts to reverse the rule at odds with the Clean Air Act.
Last November, the EPA moved ahead with its promise to repeal the glider provision found in the 2016 GHG rules. The EPA's proposed repeal contends that glider kits should not be included GHG regulations because glider vehicles are not technically “new motor vehicles” and glider engines are not “new motor vehicle engines," and thus are not subject to the EPA's authority on environmental regulations.
In a phone conference Monday, the Environmental Defense Fund challenged this reading as intentionally misrepresentative of the CAA, saying it went against the principles upon which the legislation was founded.
“For EPA to propose an interpretation of the Clean Air Act that would exclude these extremely high-polluting trucks from emissions standards is not only an unreasonable reading of the plain text of the CAA, it's also at odds with and severely undermines the core purpose of the Clean Air Act,” said Alice Henderson, EDF attorney.
EDF representatives also pointed out that industry stakeholders didn't challenge the EPA's authority over glider kits at the time the Phase 2 standards were being written.
In fact, some of those stakeholders late last year signed a letter supporting the original mandate. The letter, signed by executives from Volvo Group North America, Cummins, and Navistar, stated that glider kits should not be used to bypass currently certified powertrains.
In addition, a coalition of 12 attorneys general from California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Washington filed a comment strongly opposing the glider rule repeal, ...Read the rest of this story
