Cat resumes court dispute with Cummins

(Oct. 24, 2002) — Caterpillar is again seeking court intervention in its dispute with rival heavy-duty diesel engine maker Cummins over the technology behind an EPA-approved clean engine line.

Caterpillar told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia earlier this month that it would challenge EPA on its April decision to certify Cummins’ newest engines. Caterpillar claims Cummins’ engines are mounted with illegal “defeat devices,” emission systems capable of meeting EPA standards during testing, but which become disabled during normal highway driving. Cummins officials say the defeat devices in its engines are triggered in less than 3% of the vehicle’s operation time, and only in high altitudes and in extreme temperatures.

The latest court motion comes a month after Caterpillar’s clam was rejected by judge Henry Kennedy, who said the Cummins certification issue was outside his jurisdiction. In the same decision, Kennedy rejected two other Caterpillar arguments regarding the negative economic impact it said it faced due to an Oct. 1 deadline to meet new emissions standards and the strict monetary penalties that EPA is currently imposing on the nation’s heavy-duty diesel engine makers who fail to meet that deadline.

To this point, the engine companies have taken vastly different routes to achieve the terms of the EPA regulations, with Cummins and Caterpillar the most public in their differences. Cummins spelled out its new Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) engine technology this spring, and subsequently gained full EPA certification. Caterpillar has said it will pay the EPA non-compliance penalties in order to roll out an even-cleaner engine by early 2003 that uses so-called Advanced Combustion Emission Reduction Technology (ACERT). Caterpillar’s said it considered using the same EGR technology last year but “abandoned” it after determining it would cause engine corrosion, lower fuel economy and consume an abundance of oil. Caterpillar is also questioning whether the EPA overlooked key information when it certified the Cummins engines to meet the 2.5 gram emission standard for NOx and non-methane hydrocarbon.

Rich Cassle, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Caterpillar’s legal challenge is an attempt to deflect attention away from its own non-compliance with the consent decree. “Rather than attacking Cummins for its certification strategy, Caterpillar should get its cleaner engines out on the road as soon as possible,” Cassle said.

-Truckinginfo.com