Senate Passes Diesel Clean-up Bill - House Action Expected Soon

Great news from Capitol Hill today:

Today, the Senate passed, by unanimous consent, a bill that could lead to cleaner school buses, less pollution from trucks serving our ports, and the introduction of new, cleaner technologies into the construction and farm equipment world.

The bill is the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act of 2010 (S. 3973), which authorizes $500 million in diesel clean-up funds over the next five years.

Now the action moves to the House, where we are hopeful that the House will pass its version of DERA (H.R. 6482) before the end of the current session.

Here is some of the background:

In 2005, Congress passed the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act of 2005, which authorized up to $200 million per year, for five years, to help accelerate the clean-up of today’s dirty diesel engines.  Over the course of the last five years, Congress appropriated roughly a half-billion in funds for the program, including a one-time $300 million infusion in the 2009 stimulus law.

DERA has been a great example of cost-effective environmental legislation.  By encouraging state and local matches for DERA’s federal funding, every dollar of DERA creates at least three dollars of investment.  For example, in 2009-2010, roughly $350 million in DERA investments was matched by more than one billion in state and local funds.  (Indeed, in my own work, we’ve been able to leverage $7 million in DERA funds to create a $28 million pot for truck clean-up at the Port of New York and New Jersey over the past year).

Plus, every dollar spent on diesel retrofits yields at least $13 in health benefits – thanks to the reduced asthma emergencies, cancer, premature deaths and other health benefits of cleaner diesel engines. 

Over the past five years, thousands of communities have used DERA funds to retire, replace, retrofit, or repower the oldest, dirtiest diesels in our midst.

School districts have used DERA funds to replace old school buses with new buses that are more than 90 percent cleaner, so kids have a cleaner commute.

Cities and towns have used DERA funds to retrofit construction equipment, to help eliminate the plume of black smoke from construction equipment on job sites throughout the nation.

In rural areas, DERA funds have introduced pollution controls to the world of farm equipment, reducing pollution exposure to farmers.

And, at our nation’s busy ports, DERA funds have helped clean up the drayage trucks that spew emissions into the communities that live near ports and commercial truck routes.  

Taken together, DERA funds—in 2008 alone—took 50,000 tons of pollution out of the air (and, as a side benefit, helped communities save more than 3.2 million gallons of fuel).

Politically, DERA has been a bipartisan story.  In the recent Senate debate, Republican Senators like Senator George V. Voinovich (R-OH) and James M. Inhofe (R-OK) were vocal supporters, as were Democrat Senators like Senator Thomas R. Carper (D-DE) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA).  As noted above, the Senate passed its DERA bill by unanimous consent today.

NRDC has been working with a broad coalition of environmental, public health, business, labor, and state/local government stakeholders on the DERA bill.  Given the strong history of DERA, the bipartisan nature of the bill, the quick action in the Senate, and the need to continue cleaning up the millions of dirty diesels still out on the roads, the job sites, and the farms of America, we hope that the House will act quickly to pass its version of DERA.