EPA may settle with diesel engine makers
NEW YORK, Oct 22 (Reuters) - The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to impose its biggest civil penalty ever against makers of diesel-truck engines for violations of clean-air standards, according to officials, the New York Times reported Thursday.
If approved, the settlement could cost the companies close to $1 billion dollars before taxes and significantly reduce future pollution from diesel trucks, the report said.
EPS and Justice Department lawyers have been putting together a deal with several engine makers that would force the companies to pay large fines and accelerate bringing to production cleaner engines, the report said.
The companies are also expected to take other steps to offset the excess emissions produced by as many as a million trucks with engines that the government says were designed to evade pollution standards, the report said.
One of the companies, Cummins Engine Co (NYSE:CUM - news), said Wednesday the talks seem to be near an end and that governnment officials said they expected a settlement as early as Thursday.
Persons briefed on the settlement said it did not require that the trucks be immediately recalled and modified, the report said.
Instead, the EPA wants to use some of the money from the settlement to pay for changes to the engines when they wear out and have to be rebuilt, typically after several years or a few hundred thousand miles of operation, the report said.
As many as a million trucks are involved, built in the last decade by serveral firms, including: Cummins, Detroit Diesel (NYSE:DDC - news), Mack Trucks, Navistar International Transportation Co., Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT - news), Renault , and Volvo, the report said.
It is unclear which companies may be included in this settlement, the report noted. |
