Justice Department Ends Diesel Defeat-Device Prosecutions After 550,000 Trucks Lost Emissions Controls
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Jun 22
Justice Department Ends Diesel Defeat-Device Prosecutions After 550,000 Trucks Lost Emissions Controls
2 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Jun 22
Summary
Federal prosecutors have largely stopped bringing criminal cases against shops that sell or install illegal defeat devices on diesel pickups, according to a Justice Department policy shift disclosed earlier this year.
The department said it was using enforcement discretion to avoid over-criminalization and conserve resources, aligning the move with the Trump administration’s broader rollback of air-pollution rules it says are too costly.
EPA estimated by 2020 that more than 550,000 diesel pickups—about 15% of those originally certified with emissions controls—had those systems removed over the prior decade.
That tampering pushed nitrogen oxide emissions to as much as 300 times legal limits, an impact the EPA said was equivalent to putting more than 9 million extra diesel pickups on U.S. roads.
The retreat reverses a tougher post-2015 approach that followed Volkswagen’s defeat-device scandal and had extended criminal Clean Air Act cases to small truck-repair shops.