Sierra Club and Others Sue EPA Over Refusal to Enforce Glider Truck Rule

July 17, 2018: Today, the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, and Center for Biological Diversity filed an emergency motion in the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, challenging Andrew Wheeler’s Environmental Protection Agency for its July 6 decision to cease enforcing the glider truck requirements. Joanne Spalding, Chief Climate Counsel, and Alejandra Núñez, Senior Attorney, are representing the Sierra Club. This petition comes after the Sierra Club and several allies filed an administrative request for the EPA to withdraw its decision, only to be met with no response.

 
“Glider trucks” are freight trucks with a rebuilt used engine installed in an otherwise new frame. After pollution limits on heavy-duty freight engines were updated in 2010, glider trucks sold with old, dirty engines were dramatically more polluting than new trucks with modern engines. Used engines in gliders can emit as much as 40 times the pollution of modern engines. When the Obama EPA issued the glider regulations, the agency estimated that glider production reached 10,000 vehicles in 2015 and this number could increase if these vehicles were not controlled. The amount of pollution from 10,000 gliders sold per year could cause as many as 1,600 premature deaths during the lifetime of those trucks.
 
Vacatur or stay of EPA’s decision not to enforce glider requirements is necessary to avoid irreparable harm from the additional pollution that these dirty vehicles are now able to emit. Sierra Club and its partners have asked the Court to summarily declare EPA’s decision unlawful and vacate it, or else stay its effect pending review on the merits during the litigation. A court ruling in our favor will remove a deadly loophole that would result in far more gliders on the roads and air pollution from these super-polluting vehicles that would harm our members and the public at large.  
 
Read the official Sierra Club press release here.