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Public hearing on EPA's diesel emissions/fuel proposal

Release Date: 6/22/2000
Contact Information:
EPA 303/312-7094,

Release Date: 6/22/2000
Contact Information:
EPA 303/312-6446,

Release Date: 6/22/2000
Contact Information:
EPA 303/312-6603
WHO U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will hold one of five national public hearings this month in Denver on its proposed diesel standards affecting sulfur content in diesel fuel and emissions from heavy-duty trucks and buses. Other hearing locations include Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York.

WHAT EPA is proposing a major program to significantly reduce emissions from heavy-duty engines and vehicles. This is a comprehensive national control program that will regulate the heavy-duty vehicle and its fuel as a single system. The proposed standards will for the first time result in the widespread introduction of exhaust emission-control devices on diesel engines. The results of this historic proposal will be comparable to the advent of the catalytic converter on cars.

If approved, the new emission standards will take effect in 2007 and will apply to heavy-duty highway engines and vehicles operated on any fuel. Because these devices are damaged by sulfur, EPA also is proposing new fuel quality requirements that will remove most of the sulfur from highway diesel fuel by the middle of 2006. To meet these more stringent standards for diesel engines, the proposal requires the sulfur content of diesel fuel to be capped at 15 parts per million – a 97 percent reduction.

EPA has worked closely with the engine manufacturing, trucking and fuels industries, public health experts, environmental groups and states to develop this rule. Representatives from each of these groups are expected to offer testimony at the hearing.

WHEN Thursday, June 29, 10 a.m. (MDT)

WHERE The location for the public hearing is the Doubletree Hotel at 3203 Quebec Street in Denver (across the street from the old Stapleton International Airport). The session will take place in the Grand III Ballroom and is open to the public and media.

The hotel is about 7 miles from downtown Denver. To reach the hotel from downtown, take I-70 east to the Quebec Street exit. Go south on Quebec to Martin Luther King (MLK) Boulevard; turn right on MLK Blvd. The hotel is at the northwest corner of the intersection of Quebec and MLK Blvd.

Margaret Borushko
USEPA National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory
2000 Traverwood
Ann Arbor, MI 48105
Fax: (734) 214-4816
e-mail: [email protected]