DALLAS - A recent ruling by the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas states that the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC) lacks legal authority to set emissions or in-use standards for engines and equipment that are exclusively regulated by the federal Clean Air Act of 1990.
Industry groups, including the Engine Manufacturers Association (EMA), had filed suit against TNRCC, seeking to overturn its proposed regulations regarding diesel engine emissions on products like skid-steer loaders and other equipment landscape contractors use for construction projects. The regulations proposed by TNRCC for the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area and overturned by the court would have prohibited the operation of construction equipment during early morning hours and required that the construction industry accelerate the phase-in of new construction and industrial equipment.
EMA said implementation of TNRCC’s proposed rules would have set a precedent that states and local authorities could regulate engines and equipment that are moved from area to area and that must be regulated on a consistent nationwide basis. "These products are regulated by the U.S. EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)," explained Jed Mandel, EMA general counsel. "Engine manufacturers have worked with EPA to uniformly reduce emissions from these sources that Texas sought to control.
"Allowing each state or region to adopt its own emissions standards and use requirements would create chaos in the marketplace and severely restrict interstate commerce," Mandel continued, noting that because equipment and engines are made on assembly lines at central locations and marketed worldwide, Congress chose to regulate that equipment on the federal level. One state exempted by current federal rules, however, is California because at the time of adoption of the Clean Air Act, California was already regulating the classes of equipment now controlled under the federal act.
Mandel said EMA initially worked with TRNCC during the rule-making stage to help find a legal way to achieve emissions reductions. However, EMA later sued TRNCC because TRNCC did not follow the association’s recommendations and had potentially violated the rules set forth by the EPA. Although the Texas court found the violation to be true, Mandel said EMA is not opposed to TRNCC’s goals of reducing emissions. "We’re certainly not opposed to reducing emissions and to finding a way to provide cleaner product to Texas or any other state," he noted. "We’ll continue to work with Texas to find ways to get cleaner product in the hands of consumers."
Mandel also said that EMA promotes different ways for states to achieve emissions reductions, such as incentive programs like Senate Bill 5, recently passed by the Texas legislature, which creates financial incentives for fleet operators to replace older, high-emissions vehicles with newer, cleaner-operating models. "This program will achieve the emissions reductions sought by TNRCC," said Mandel. "EMA supports and encourages adoption of similar incentive programs in other states."
The author is Internet Editor of Lawn & Landscape Online.