They call them “gliders.” They are big rigs built and sold without engines, transmissions, and rear axles. Then they are supplied with these items from salvage yards and wrecked trucks, and the engines are totally rebuilt down to the core. Rebuilt engines that, thanks to a loophole, aren’t required to meet limits on emissions from diesel-fueled trucks because they were originally built before 2001. Engines that, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, spew 43-55 times more emissions than other new big rigs.
About 4 percent of the U.S. truck market is currently made up of gliders—some 10,000 vehicles a year—in part as a result of trying to evade the diesel emissions rule on nitrogen oxide and particulate matter that came into full effect in 2010. Prior to that rule, NOx and PM emissions from big rigs were estimated to prematurely kill 1,600 people a year from cancer and asthma attacks.
Since 2010, according to the Department of Transportation, sales of gliders rose tenfold from 2010-2015. Using its authority under the Clean Air Act, the Obama administration sought in an updated emissions rule in 2015 to close this loophole by limiting to 300 the number of glider kits sold each year.
But, in November, a month before the rule came into full effect, the Trump regime in the person of EPA-hating EPA Chief Scott Pruitt exempted three makers of gliders on the ground that the agency has no authority to limit sales in this manner. And he opened a 60-day public comment period on the prospect of EPA eliminating the annual cap on gliders. That comment period is now over.
Pruitt made it appear the decision was all about jobs, of course:
“The previous administration attempted to bend the rule of law and expand the reach of the federal government in a way that threatened to put an entire industry of specialized truck manufacturers out of business,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in a statement.
“Accordingly, the agency is taking comment on an interpretation of the Clean Air Act that recognizes the unique nature of a vehicle made up of both new and used component parts. Gliders not only provide a more affordable option for smaller owners and operators, but also serve as a key economic driver to numerous rural communities,” he said.
In other words, he was laying the groundwork for another killer rollback at EPA.
Eric Lipton at The New York Times on Thursday pulled back the curtain on gliders and the process that led to Pruitt’s exemption:
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.
“The previous administration attempted to bend the rule of law and expand the reach of the federal government in a way that threatened to put an entire industry of specialized truck manufacturers out of business,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in a statement.
“Accordingly, the agency is taking comment on an interpretation of the Clean Air Act that recognizes the unique nature of a vehicle made up of both new and used component parts. Gliders not only provide a more affordable option for smaller owners and operators, but also serve as a key economic driver to numerous rural communities,” he said.
The short version is that Scott Pruitt, Tennessee Republican Rep. Diane Black—candidate for governor—and Tennessee Technological University’s researchers are in the pocket of industry. Specifically, Fitzgerald Collision & Repair, which completes some 3,500 of the gliders built in the United States each year.
To combat the emissions rule, Fitzgerald paid for a TTU study in 2016 that essentially said glider trucks did not emit more harmful pollutants than trucks complying with the new rule. As a result of the ruckus the study generated among some TTU faculty, a university team is investigating whether “possible academic misconduct” took place.
Fitzgerald also announced in August 2017 a partnership with TTU to set up a research center, the Fitzgerald Technology Complex, on land the company owns.
And members of the Fitzgerald family contributed at least $225,000 to Rep. Black’s gubernatorial campaign. Just good citizens, right? Nothing to do with the fact that Black was the person who informed Pruitt of the TTU study and who tried in 2015 to exempt gliders from the new emissions rule with an amendment that passed the House of Representatives but never got any further. A spokesperson for Black told Lipton that the congresswoman is not influenced by campaign donations.
Lipton notes that, among others, heavy hitters such as Volvo and Navistar, the United Parcel Service, the National Association of Manufacturers, American Lung Association, and the Consumer Federation of America have all taken a stance against rolling back the glider cap. But Pruitt has convincingly shown in the past year that he does not believe controlling pollution and protecting the health of people and the environment should be one of the EPA’s prime missions.