Clean Diesel Grants Worth $49 Million Offered Nationwide

The unprecedented sum, which was authorized by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and funded for the first time this fiscal year, will be administered by the EPA's National Clean Diesel Campaign and its network of seven collaboratives, made up of EPA regional offices and public and private sector partners.

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said, "By encouraging innovations in existing diesel engines, EPA is driving the nation toward a clean, healthy, productive tomorrow."

The grants are targeting school or transit buses, medium and heavy-duty trucks, marine engines, locomotives and nonroad engines.

Diesel exhaust is harmful to human health. (Photo courtesy SACE)

Grant recipients can use a variety of cost-effective emission reduction strategies, such as EPA-verified retrofit and idle-reduction technologies, EPA-certified engine upgrades, vehicle or equipment replacements, cleaner fuels and creation of innovative clean diesel financing programs.

Diesel exhaust is a complex mixture of gases and fine particles, or soot, that contains more than 40 toxic air contaminants. These include many known or suspected cancer-causing substances, such as benzene, arsenic and formaldehyde. It also contains other harmful pollutants, including nitrogen oxides, which contribute to the formation of smog.

But diesels are the economic workhorses of the nation, and over the past decade, EPA has set stringent new particulate and nitrogen oxide standards for most types of new engines.

The agency says these regulations for new engines will prevent more than 20,000 premature deaths annually and yield more than $150 billion in public health benefits when fully implemented.

The newly announced funding, however, is aimed at reducing emissions from the existing fleet of 11 million diesel engines that pre-date these standards.

President and CEO of the American Trucking Associations Bill Graves says clean diesel is a success story, but says the trucking industry is caught in a double bind of the federal government's making.

Before clean diesel (Photo courtesy EPA)

In a speech last October on the state of the U.S. trucking industry Graves said, "Thanks to tremendous efforts be the engine manufacturers and truck manufacturing community since 2002, clean diesel technology has produced one of the great environmental success stories of our time. It’s a story that will continue to unfold in 2010, with the clean air benefits growing for years to come."

"We are very proud of our industry role in a cleaner environment, but cannot ignore the counter-productive nature of federal government objectives; on the one hand requiring cleaner emissions which challenge our ability to be fuel efficient, and on the other hand admonishing our industry for not being more fuel efficient and thereby contributing to greenhouse gas emissions," he said.

"The trucking industry is more than willing to do its environmental part, but some degree of common sense and coordination in planning the steps toward progress would improve the chances for success and save the U.S. business community countless dollars," said Graves, a former two-term governor of Kansas whose family started a trucking business in 1935.

Now truckers who want to reduce their emissions can do so on the federal government dime. State, local, regional and tribal governments can apply for the $49.2 million available for grants, as well as nonprofits and institutions with transportation, educational services and air quality responsibilities.

Some EPA regional offices have already started issuing requests for grant applications, called Requests for Proposals, and, along with EPA Headquarters, will continue to roll them out throughout the spring.

The EPA says its National Clean Diesel Campaign has allowed more than 400,000 existing diesel engines to be retrofitted during the campaign's first few years, cutting harmful emissions by nearly 300,000 tons.

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