By Cat Lazaroff

WASHINGTON, DC, May 7, 2002 (ENS) - A federal appeals court has upheld a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulation that requires reduced emissions from diesel trucks and buses and lower sulfur level in diesel fuel. The rule, issued in the final days of the Clinton administration, was challenged in court by a coalition of trucking, manufacturing and oil industry groups.

Big rigs and buses will be required to slash tailpipe emissions by more than 90 percent. (Four photos courtesy EPA)

"We applaud the court's decision to uphold such an important program," said Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Christie Whitman. "Now all Americans will receive significant health and environmental benefits from the dramatic cuts in air pollution released from these large trucks and buses."

Large diesel trucks and buses emit about 2.6 millions tons of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and about 130,000 tons of particulate pollutants each year. A variety of public health organizations, both in the U.S. and worldwide, have determined that diesel exhaust or the particulates in the exhaust are linked to cancer in humans.

Whitman said the EPA estimates that about 8,300 premature deaths will be prevented by the new regulations each year, along with 5,500 cases of chronic bronchitis and 17,600 cases of acute bronchitis in children.

Smoke from diesel buses, a familiar sight in urban areas, can lead to respiratory illnesses and even cancer.

Beginning with model year 2007, NOx emissions from heavy duty diesel trucks and buses will be reduced by 95 percent. Devices similar to the catalytic converters now used on cars will be installed on trucks and buses to achieve the cleaner emission standards.

The pollution control technologies will not work using fuels with current levels of sulfur, however. Therefore, the EPA regulation requires a 97 percent reduction in the sulfur content of highway diesel fuel from its current level of 500 parts per million to 15 parts per million.

With some exceptions, the rule gives the petroleum industry until 2006 to develop and market this type of cleaner burning diesel fuel.

When the rule is fully implemented in 2010, the EPA estimates it will prevent the release of 2.6 million tons of smog causing nitrogen oxide emissions each year. Soot or particulate matter will be reduced by 90 percent, or 110,000 tons a year.

Diesel vehicles are among the prime sources of the pollution that leads to smog.

Health experts say the emissions that the regulation is expected to eliminate contribute to more than 360,000 asthma attacks and 386,000 cases of respiratory symptoms in asthmatic children every year. Respiratory illnesses linked to air pollution also lead to 1.5 million lost work days, 7,100 hospital visits and 2,400 emergency room visits for asthma each year, the EPA estimates.

"Hundreds of thousands of Americans will live longer and healthier lives as a result of these new truck and bus standards," said U.S. PIRG clean cars advocate Emily Figdor. "Our days of tolerating thick, black belches of truck exhaust on city streets and highways are coming to an end."

State governments, faced with strict new air quality regulations, and automobile manufacturers who hope the cleaner diesel fuel will help them meet emissions and fuel efficiency standards, supported the government's court case alongside conservation groups. But the trucking and petroleum industries argued that the costs of the EPA regulation could force smaller companies out of business.

Supporters of the rule say its effect will be the equivalent of taking 13 million of the nation's 14 million trucks off the road.

"This case has never been about whether the sulfur content of highway diesel fuel will be substantially reduced," said Bob Slaughter, NPRA's president. "It will be."

"This case was about whether sulfur reductions should occur in a reasonable timeframe, to maintain needed fuel supplies and ease the impact on the already stressed U.S. refining system," continued Slaughter.

Oil refiners say dramatic cuts in sulfur could prove prohibitively expensive. (Photo courtesy North Atlantic Co.)

Conservation groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), liken the industry's concerns to those that were raised when leaded gasoline was banned more than two decades ago, for similar health and environmental reasons. Despite dire predictions from the auto and fuels industries, the transition to unleaded fuel was made with little economic impact, and major environmental benefits.

The EPA projects that the new regulations will ultimately cost about $4 billion dollars per year, while bringing more than $70 billion a year in benefits.

"Today's decision paves the way for the biggest air quality and public health advance since the we took lead out of gasoline more than 20 years ago," said Richard Kassel, NRDC senior attorney. "Just as removing lead from gasoline was the key to cleaning up cars, removing sulfur from diesel fuel is the key to cleaning up diesel trucks and buses."

The court's opinion is available at: http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/common/opinions/200205/01-1052a.txt