EPA Watchdog: White House Blocked Part of Truck Pollution Investigation, Caused Lack of Public Information

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Byย Jordan Davidson, EcoWatch.ย Reposted with permission fromย EcoWatch.ย 

Theย Trump administrationย pushed through an exemption toย clean airย rules, effectively freeing heavy polluting, super-cargo trucks from following clean air rules. It rushed the rule without conducting a federally mandated study on how it would impactย public health, especially children, said the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Inspector General Charles J. Sheehan in aย reportย released yesterday, as theย APย reported.

The gift to the trucking and fuel industry was one ofย Scott Pruitt‘s last acts as EPA Administrator before he resigned under a cloud of ethics violations in July 2018. He was alleged to have used tax payer money for first-class travel, a security detail that surrounded him 24 hours per day, an inexpensive lease in a lobbyist’s apartment, and secretive meetings with executives from the fossil fuel industry, asย CNNย reported.

The EPA inspector general not only faulted the EPA for failing to conduct a mandatory study intoย air pollutionย and how it affects children’s health, but also the White House budget office for failing to provide requested information, according toย CNN.

โ€œThe lack of analyses caused the public to not be informed of the proposed rule’s benefits, costs, potential alternatives and impacts on children’s health during the public comment period,โ€ theย reportย reads.

The office โ€œrefused to provide โ€ฆ specific responses or documentation,โ€ the inspector general said Thursday, asย CNNย reported. The office claimed that the information was โ€œparticularlyย sensitive.โ€

โ€œSuch actions call into question the quality of EPA rulemaking processes and leave the public and stakeholders without the information necessary to make informed comments on EPA regulatory actions,โ€ the inspector general’sย reportย warned, as theย APย reported.

The rule in question pertains to โ€œglider trucks,โ€ which are trucks with older engines that do not meet current air pollution rules, but were set to impose emissions standards and production limits in January 2018. Glider trucks are a booming sector of the cargo industry, in which an older diesel engine is refitted with a new big rig body. Emission tests show that glider trucks are far more damaging to people’s health than trucks with newer engines, emitting up to several hundred times the amount of certain pollutions, according to theย AP.

Theย New York Timesย reported that EPA scientists found that these older diesel engines can emit up to 55 times more soot than newerย trucks.

The rush to pass the Glider Repeal Rule came after Pruitt met with several executives from Fitzgerald Glider Kits, the largest maker of gliders. Following, the executives welcomed Donald Trump to one of their plants during the 2016 campaign, as theย APย reported.

The EPA watchdog found in theย reportย that โ€œAdministrator Pruitt directed that the Glider Repeal Rule be promulgated as quickly as possible,โ€ without conducting the necessary studies required to implement theย rule.

Two years ago, an EPA official wrote in an email that the Glider Repeal Rule did not โ€œattempt to provide any of the cost/benefit type analysisโ€ typically required for rules that are considered economically significant, according toย CNN.

โ€œIt is my understanding that such analysis (and data) does not exist; that such analysis will not be produced in the timeframe in which we are working; and that, in any event, if such analysis were ever to be produced, it would most likely not be as ‘supportive’ of the proposal as OMB and others might like,โ€ reads theย email.

The inspector general wrote that the agency should return to squareย one.

โ€œWe recommend that the agency identify for the public the substantive change to the proposed rule made at the suggestion or recommendation of OIRA, conduct the required analyses prior to finalizing the repeal, provide the public a means to comment on the analyses supporting the rulemaking, and document the decisions made,โ€ theย reportย says.

The two Democratic lawmakers who requested the inspector-general’s review, Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware and Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico, said the report showed โ€œthe troubling extent to which the Trump EPA went to break the law and abuse the regulatory process in order to benefit individual political benefactors from the glider truck industry,โ€ according to theย AP.

Main image credit:ย Chris Sharkman from Pixabay

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