Nissa Koerner, nissa.koerner@sierraclub.org
Washington, DC -- Today, the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, and Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit 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. This 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.
In response, Sierra Club Chief Climate Counsel Joanne Spalding released the following statement:
“Meet the new boss, the same as the old boss. Scott Pruitt was at the EPA helm when this illegal policy was adopted, but Andrew Wheeler is refusing to fix it. Wheeler may try to claim he’s different from Pruitt, but in reality, he’s one in the same. Wheeler, like Pruitt, is trying to pull the wool over the American people’s eyes, this time passing off a wolf in sheep's clothing -- the outside of these trucks may look new, but inside, they're run by old dirty engines. The EPA’s decision to halt the enforcement of this rule endangers the health and safety of American families and our climate. We are suing Wheeler and the EPA to stop their attempt to disregard established law and processes as they seeks to ransack climate and public health safeguards.”
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with more than 3 million members and supporters. In addition to helping people from all backgrounds explore nature and our outdoor heritage, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.