EPA to issue new diesel rules

WASHINGTON -- Pollution should be sharply reduced from off-road vehicles and equipment ranging from forklifts to farm tractors to tugboats under regulations announced Monday by the Bush administration.

The Environmental Protection Agency will issue a final rule today that requires refiners to remove nearly all the sulfur in diesel fuel used by these off-road engines. The rules are aimed at cutting their tailpipe releases of smog-causing chemicals and fine soot by more than 90 percent.

Off-road vehicles used in construction, farming, industrial plants and airports account for a quarter of all the smog-causing nitrogen oxide and nearly half of the fine soot from mobile sources, according to the EPA.

Fine soot and smog are blamed for increases in respiratory illnesses and thousands of premature deaths annually.

Children, the elderly and people suffering from asthma are especially vulnerable.

EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt briefed President Bush on the new diesel regulations and other air quality issues at the White House on Monday.

The EPA previously issued requirements for cleaner diesel fuel for large tractor-trailer rigs, trucks and buses, and for gasoline, requiring refiners to take most of the sulfur out of these fuels. Engine makers have argued that the sulfur destroys pollution control equipment.

The regulation, to be signed by Leavitt on Tuesday, extends the tougher sulfur standard to diesel used in the off-road vehicles and to tug boats, barges, ferries and other types of boats. The EPA also will propose a separate rule Tuesday that will establish new environmental standards for locomotive and marine engines.

Under the new regulation, refiners will have to cut sulfur in diesel used in off-road engines to 500 parts per million within the next three years and to 15 parts per million by 2012, compared to a sulfur content of as much as 3,400 parts per million in some of the fuel used today.

The new diesel requirements will have "substantial air quality and public health benefits," said Bill Becker, executive director of associations representing state and local air pollution control officials. "This rule will play a key role in helping states and localities .... meet health-based air quality standards."

Becker said state officials and environmentalists had wanted a quicker phase in, requiring the low-sulfur fuel as early as 2007. But he said refiners said they couldn't meet the deadline, so they were given until 2010. In return, the EPA agreed to expand the rule to cover marine vessels and locomotives, which environmentalists called for.

The Bush administration and the EPA in particular have been under sharp attack from environmentalists over air quality issues, including actions that give industry more flexibility in dealing with pollution from power plants and in reducing mercury emissions.

But environmentalists on Monday applauded the EPA's diesel fuel requirements.

Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense, called the new requirements for off-road vehicles "a breath of fresh air" and said they will "help protect millions of Americans suffering from asthma and all Americans that are hard hit by pollution from diesel exhaust."

"It's remarkable that these strong rules come from the same administration that has otherwise turned back the clock on 30 years of environmental progress," said Emily Figdor of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a grass-roots environmental advocacy group.

Allen Schaeffer, executive director of the industry-sponsored Diesel Technology Forum, said the tougher fuel requirements will usher in "a new era of off-road diesel engines and equipment."

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On the Net

Environmental Protection Agency www.epa.gov

Diesel Technology Forum www.dieselforum.org