Consumers Union Tells EPA: Maintain Glider/Heavy Duty Truck Rule

The Consumers Union has encouraged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a public hearing on its proposed rule to repeal the emission requirements for glider vehicles, glider engines and glider kits, to not roll back the rule.

Gliders are manufactured as new truck bodies, without engines, transmissions, or rear axles. Here’s the issue: Manufacturers often insert decades-old engines onto these gliders. EPA rules passed in 2015 required that these vehicles adhere to more stringent, modern emission requirements.

However, the proposed repeal would eliminate this requirement, likely returning to a rapid growth of truck sales that emit dramatically more pollution than new trucks and that do not meet modern vehicle safety rules. David Friedman, director of cars and product policy and analysis for Consumers Union, the policy and mobilization division of Consumer Reports, delivered  testimony at the hearing.

He said: “We are deeply concerned with the potential for EPA to roll back protections for heavy truck gliders as that would make the marketplace less fair, our roadways more dangerous and undermine public health,” Friedman said during morning remarks. “This rollback would reopen a loophole that is big enough to drive an 18-wheeler through.”

“The added societal costs [of repeal] outweigh the cheaper price, and most of those costs, like highway fatalities, would be spread to our families instead of the truck owners,” Friedman continued. “This is a clear and classic market failure that was corrected by EPA’s glider provision. This provision must be allowed to remain.”

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