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By Eric Miller, Staff Reporter

This story appears in the April 21 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

The state of Texas said it received about 1,450 requests for grants as part of its $110 million emission-reduction plan to help carriers retrofit and replace older trucks to help clean the state’s air.

Eligible projects are intended to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions in eligible counties. Heavy-duty trucks, off-road equipment, marine vessels, locomotives and stationary equipment are eligible for the grants, funded by transportation industry fees.

Steve Dayton, team leader of the program’s grant contract development team, said about 30% to 40% of the money will go to replace or add emission-reduction devices or repower engines in older heavy trucks.

“Most of our funding goes to the replacements and repowers,” Dayton said.

Terry Clawson, a spokesman for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said the grants, which will be awarded this summer, were first authorized by the Legislature in 2001 as a way to bring the state into compliance with federal ambient air quality standards for ozone.

“We have several nonattainment areas, and we are under threat of penalty from the federal government if we don’t get the nonattainment areas taken care of,” Clawson said. Texas is considered one of the nation’s leading highway polluters.

The level of funding in Texas alone is more than double the amount awarded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency nationwide this year.

TCEQ is awarding the grants through its Texas Emissions Reduction Plan program in areas that are falling short of meeting EPA’s ozone standards: Houston-Galveston-Brazoria; Dallas-Fort Worth; Beaumont-Port Arthur; Tyler-Longview; Austin; and San Antonio.

The program does not address the reduction of greenhouse gases but is rather geared toward NOx reductions, he said. Pre-1994 trucks have the highest NOx emissions and therefore are the primary target of the grants, Dayton said.

The funds will pay for up to 80% of the total cost for a new truck. Funding formulas require the state to award grants that cost $10,000 or less for each ton of NOx reduction.

Since 2001, the TERP program has awarded 3,430 grants totaling $545 million, reducing NOx emissions by 127,000 tons, he said.

John Esparza, chief executive officer of the Texas Motor Transportation Association, said that while the program is “headed in the right direction,” it has its limitations that preclude many truckers from obtaining the grants.

One problem is that of the 254 counties in Texas, only those carriers that operate at least 75% of their business in 41 counties are even eligible for program funding, Esparza said.

That requirement can be difficult at a time when the trucking industry is being challenged by economic conditions.

“If you’re in the trucking business and going from point A to point B, your shipper may tell you that next week you’re going from point A to point C,” Esparza said.

If a company has to travel out of the nonattainment zones too often, it could disqualify the carrier and require the company to return the grant money to the state, Esparza said.

Environmentalists have been generally complimentary of the state’s effort to reduce nitrogen oxides emissions, but they want state officials to also turn their efforts toward reducing pollution from particulate matter.

The nonprofit Clean Air Task Force has lauded state officials for implementing the TERP program, but the task force also said in a 2005 report the state had the nation’s fifth-highest number of diesel-related deaths.

“As far as cleaning up diesel in general, I think it’s going well,” said Rachel McClure, environmental and energy director for Public Citizen–Texas.

But in its promotional literature Public Citizen has called on state regulators to expand TERP funding toward helping mitigate diesel particulate emissions.

“Diesel particulate matter (soot and ash) is the most deadly component of diesel exhaust and is primarily emitted in densely populated areas — contaminating the air where people live, work and attend school,” the group said. “This is a problem because entire populations regularly and unknowingly inhale tiny, toxic particles during everyday activities.”

Texas does not regulate greenhouse gases and is not among the 17 states that have joined California’s lawsuit against the EPA for recently denying the state a waiver to implement its greenhouse gas regulations.