Three Inland Northwest diesel truck companies agree to pay EPA penalties for selling prohibited emission products

Three Inland Northwest companies selling parts for heavy-duty diesel trucks have agreed to pay a combined $180,000 in fines to the Environmental Protection Agency, whose investigators say they sold devices designed to bypass air quality standards.

The EPA announced the actions in a news release Thursday, identifying Diesel Power Products, of Spokane Valley, and Alligator Diesel Performance and Deviant Race Parts, of Hayden, as the companies settling cases.

The companies were the target of a nationwide crackdown by regulators on sellers and manufacturers of “defeat devices,” which are aftermarket products that alter the function of features that have become standard on trucks since the 1970s to reduce the amount of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter in exhaust.

Phone messages left for the companies were not returned Thursday.

Enforcement records published by the EPA found that the three companies sold more than 70,000 parts during a period of January 2016 to May 2018 that could be considered in violation of federal laws controlling pollution. Those parts included electronic tuners that can override vehicle computers, which stop operation if emissions controls aren’t working. They also included exhaust pipes that don’t include features intended to reduce emissions and engine parts that alter an exhaust recirculation system reducing temperature and nitrogen oxide emissions in diesel trucks.

The EPA said in a news release the parts accounted for an estimated 49 million pounds of additional air pollution, which has been linked to increased prevalence of lung cancer, respiratory and cardiovascular disease and asthma.

Truck owners frequently purchase the parts to increase power to the engine, or to avoid maintenance costs, EPA officials in Seattle said Thursday.

Diesel trucks aren’t the only vehicles that have been found to be altered using defeat devices. While the parts in the Inland Northwest cases were aftermarket, the car manufacturing giant Volkswagen found itself in hot water after admitting a half-million of its diesel cars in the United States were outfitted with software that allowed the vehicles to “cheat” emissions tests by the EPA, including some models of the Beetle, Jetta and Passat, as well as Audi cars manufactured by VW.

VW eventually agreed in 2016 to buy back $10 billion worth of defective diesel cars.

The EPA agreed to a $50,800 settlement with Diesel Power Products, a $90,000 settlement with Alligator Diesel Performance and $40,000 settlement with Deviant Race Parts. Those amounts were intended to be punitive, but not severe enough to put the companies out of business, the EPA said in its statement. They were signed in January, and the fines have been paid.

The EPA said last year that targeting aftermarket defeat devices would be a priority from 2020 through 2023. The agency has settled 50 cases against aftermarket product providers, and officials on Thursday said more cases were likely.