Four members of a U.S. House Committee have asked the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General to investigate the agency’s use of a study that claimed glider kit trucks do not produce harmful emissions at levels greater than trucks with new engines.
The study was produced last year by Tennessee Tech University (TTU) and funded by Fitzgerald Glider Kits, the country’s largest builder of glider kit trucks. The lawmakers cite potential conflicts of interest between TTU and Fitzgerald, among other concerns.
EPA cited the study last year in a proposed rule that sought to exempt glider kits from emissions standards enacted in 2016. Those regs — part of the sweeping Phase 2 emissions standards enacted for all truck, trailer and engine manufacturers — called for glider kit makers to be capped at building just 300 trucks a year that did not comply with modern emissions regulations.
The 2017 proposal from EPA would have removed that cap. However, the 300-truck cap is still in place, as the EPA has not yet finalized the rule. The agency has not indicated when — or if — the rule will be made final.
The Congressional letter is signed by Reps. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), Don Beyer Jr. (D-Virginia), Suzanne Bonamici (D-Oregon), and Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.), members of the House’s Science, Space and Technology Committee.
The lawmakers asking for the EPA inquiry cite Fitzgerald’s financial relationships with TTU, an alleged lack of qualified researchers and alleged lack of proper testing equipment and facilities as reasons for the inquiry request. They also cite multiple high-level faculty members at TTU, including the principal researcher in the glider kits study, who’ve raised complaints about the study and its results.
Fitzgerald this year told Overdrive that it “has every confidence in the integrity of the Tennessee Tech study and the personnel who conducted it. The results were not predetermined. Fitzgerald Glider Kits employees had no involvement in the monitoring or testing performed in connection with the study, nor were they involved in compiling the test data.”
