The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a report to Congress this week detailing the health, environmental and economic benefits of the Agency's Diesel Emission Reduction Program. The program, funded at $50 million last year, allowed EPA to fund the purchase or retrofitting of 14,000 diesel-powered vehicles and pieces of equipment. A copy of the report is available
here.
According to EPA's report,
Highlights of the Diesel Emissions Reduction Program, the resulting benefits from the program include:
- Reducing 46,000 tons of nitrogen oxide, a key contributor to elevated smog levels, and 2,200 tons of particulate matter over the lifetime of diesel vehicles;
- Conserving 3.2.million gallons of fuel annually under the SmartWay Clean Diesel Finance Program, which saves operators $8 million annually; and
- Generating public health benefits between $500 million to $1.4 billion.
EPA is currently implementing stringent regulatory standards for new diesel engines. Because diesel engines remain in use for decades, government agencies and environmental advocacy groups are focused on finding ways to clean-up or "retrofit" the engines in the existing fleet that is currently out in the field. Under the so-called Diesel Emissions Reduction Program, which comprises both national grant competitions and direct state allocations, EPA provides support for retrofits, repairs, replacements, idle reduction, cleaner fuels, innovative financing for clean technologies under the SmartWay Clean Diesel Finance Program, and other strategies. As a result, today all 50 states now have some form of clean diesel retrofit program, with 32 of them also providing their own matching funds.
AGC joins with a unique national coalition of more than 150 environmental and public health organizations, industry representatives, and state and local government associations in supporting the Diesel Emissions Reduction Program and in urging Congress to fully fund that program at $200 million in FY2010.
Congress funded the Diesel Emission Reduction Program for existing fleets for the first time in FY2008. Though authorized at $200 million annually, the program received only $49.2 million in FY08, which was used for retrofit projects across all regions of the country and in various types of vehicles. EPA provided 119 grant awards in the first year of the program. School buses and long haul trucks accounted for approximately 70 percent of the projects; however, construction equipment, refuse haulers, delivery trucks and transit buses were also well represented in the projects that were funded.
On top of the FY2008 funding, competitions for FY2009 clean diesel funding grants totaling more than $60 million are now in progress. In addition to its budget funding, EPA recently awarded $300 million in clean diesel funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Diesel retrofit projects can also help reduce carbon dioxide emissions, which are of concern for their climate change implications. The report claims that the first year projects will reduce more than 35,600 tons of carbon dioxide per year. However, EPA acknowledges this figure significantly underestimates the projects' true CO2 emission reductions since it only reflects savings from idle reduction technologies and does not account for reductions from fuel economy benefits gained from engine repowering, replacement or upgrade projects.
The Diesel Emissions Reduction Program was established in the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA) and incorporated within the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to promote voluntary retrofit programs at both the national and state levels. EPA distributes 70 percent of the funds through nationally competitive grant programs, with the remaining 30 percent dedicated for the states (and some of the funds dedicated as matching funds), further leveraging the dollars Congress appropriates.
More information on clean diesel grants and funding is online at http://www.epa.gov/otaq/diesel/grantfund.htm. More information on the SmartWay program is online at http://www.epa.gov/smartway.