U.S. House Approves Diesel Emissions Reduction Act

Congressional Passage of Bipartisan Environmental Legislation Reauthorizes Successful Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA) for Five More Years.

By Source: The Diesel Technology Forum December 21, 2010

The Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA) now just needs President Obama’s signature for the bipartisan legislation to be reauthorized for five more years as the U.S. House of Representatives approved DERA this morning by a voice vote. The U.S. Senate had unanimously approved the legislation on December 16th.  President Obama is expected to sign the reauthorization into law.

DERA (H.R. 5809) is a five-year reauthorization of the highly-successful program created in 2005 to establish voluntary national and state-level grant and loan programs to reduce diesel emissions by upgrading and modernizing older diesel engines and equipment.  The bipartisan legislation was introduced on November 18th by U.S. Senators George Voinovich (R-OH) and Tom Carper (D-DE) and cosponsored by several of their colleagues including Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Ranking Member James Inhofe (R-OK).  The House sponsors were U.S. Reps. Doris Matsui (D-CA) and Laura Richardson (D-CA).

DERA is being supported by a unique and diverse coalition of more than 500 environmental, health, industry, labor and government organizations. DERA funds are used to clean up the nation’s older diesels, by retrofitting or replacing them with new technologies that significantly reduce the soot and emissions.  EPA estimates there to be an estimated 11 million older diesel trucks, buses, and equipment in use today.

Since 2005, the federal government has invested roughly a half-billion dollars through DERA to improve America’s air quality by upgrading and modernizing older diesel engines and equipment through engine replacements and retrofits that would include new pollution-cutting filters and catalysts. When all of today’s older diesels have been replaced by new models that meet current EPA standards, at least 110,000 tons of particulate matter (or soot) and 2.6 million tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides will be eliminated from the nation’s air. This is the equivalent of taking 13 million of today’s trucks off the roads.

List of Previous DERA projects

The Diesel Technology Forum

– Edited by Gust Gianos, Consulting-Specifying Engineer