Diesel Engines Power

Why Clean Diesel?

Reducing emissions from diesel engines is one of the most important air quality challenges facing the country today. EPA established the National Clean Diesel Campaign (NCDC) to promote diesel emission reduction strategies. NCDC includes regulatory programs to address new diesel engines as well as innovative programs to address the millions of diesel engines already in use.

Diesel engines power the movement of goods across the nation, help construct the buildings in which we live and work, help build the roads on which we travel, and carry millions of children to school each day. While diesel engines provide mobility and are critical to the nation’s economy, exhaust from diesel engines contains pollutants that negatively impact human health and the environment. Diesel engines emit large amounts of nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and air toxics, which contribute to serious public health problems.

NCDC’s Innovative Strategies

More than 11 million diesel engines in operation today do not meet EPA’s new clean diesel standards, yet these engines can continue to operate for 20 to 30 years. EPA established innovative programs to accelerate emission reductions from older diesel engines to provide more immediate air quality benefits. The goal of these innovative programs is to address in-use diesel engines by promoting a variety of cost-effective emission reduction strategies, including: switching to cleaner fuels; retrofitting, repairing, repowering, and replacing equipment; and reducing idling. EPA has made significant progress toward this goal by engaging in partnerships, fostering innovative technologies, and providing funding assistance to accelerate the introduction of clean diesel technologies.

NCDC programs are creating demand for diesel emission reduction technologies. The purpose of EPA’s Verification Program is to evaluate the emission reduction capabilities of a given technology. Through this process, EPA helps to instill confidence in our stakeholder community that the verified emission reductions will be achieved. The verification process includes a thorough technical review of the technology as well as tightly controlled testing to quantify emission reductions.

Through NCDC, EPA has collaborated with thousands of partners to reduce the health effects of diesel emissions across the nation. These diverse and committed partners include state and local governments that have created incentive programs to reduce emissions from both public and private fleets; businesses and industry groups that have provided technical assistance and devoted millions of dollars to retrofit diesel engines; and environmental or community groups that have successfully advocated for and managed effective projects to help reduce the public health impacts from diesel emissions.

EPA has created a toolkit to support state and local governments in their efforts to reduce diesel emissions.

NCDC’s Regulatory Programs for New Diesel Engines

EPA has finalized new clean fuel and vehicle emission standards that will lead to dramatic emission reductions in new diesel-powered engines.

The 2008 Locomotive and Marine Diesel Rule will result in PM reductions of about 90 percent and NOx reductions of about 80 percent from engines meeting these standards, compared to engines meeting the current standards. By 2030 this program will reduce annual emissions of NOx by about 800,000 tons and PM emissions by 27,000 tons and those emission reductions continue to grow beyond 2030 as fleet turnover is completed.

The 2007 Heavy-Duty Highway Engine Rule will cut harmful pollutants from new highway engines by more than 90 percent, resulting in annual reductions of 2.6 million tons of NOx and 110,000 tons of PM when fully implemented.

The Clean Air Nonroad Diesel Rule will cut emissions from new construction and agricultural and industrial engines by more than 90 percent, resulting in annual reductions of 738,000 tons of NOx and 120,000 tons of PM annually when fully implemented.