Trucking news and briefs for Friday, Dec. 15, 2023:
The owner and president of a North Kingstown, Rhode Island-based trucking company and his two corporations were sentenced in federal court in Providence this week for violating the Clean Air Act by tampering with emissions control systems.
U.S. Attorney Zachary A. Cunha in a press release said Michael J. Collins and his companies conspired together with trucking and diesel vehicle sales and service companies throughout the United States and with a foreign national to violate the Clean Air Act by selling and providing a software program that tampered with on-board vehicle computers in order to alter or bypass key features in emission control systems.
Collins, having previously pled guilty to a charge of conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act, was ordered to serve a term of three years of probation; to perform 100 hours of community service; pay a $50,000 fine; and to create a compliance and ethics program and notify his employees and stockholders of said program.
Additionally, each of Collins’ corporations was placed on probation for three years and ordered to provide a payment of $125,000 to the Rhode Island Environmental Recovery Fund.
According to Cunha, for nearly five years beginning in September 2014, Collins, his North Kingstown company M&D Transportation, Inc.; his now-defunct Diesel Tune-Ups of RI, Inc. business; various trucking and diesel vehicle sales and repair companies throughout the United States; and a foreign national all conspired to alter or disable certain functions of the electronic control modules (ECM) and on-board diagnostic (OBD) monitoring systems of heavy-duty trucks, performing “tunes.”
Collins admitted that in exchange for a fee, the unnamed foreign national would download tuning software through a laptop provided by Collins and his companies that was then connected to each vehicle. Through a remote connection, the “tunes” were downloaded onto each truck’s ECM to reprogram the vehicle’s monitoring systems.
