The Department of Justice on Wednesday said it won't be enforcing violations of the Clean Air Act from tampering with emissions technology as a criminal violation anymore.
The DOJ tweeted it's "exercising its enforcement discretion to no longer pursue criminal charges under the Clean Air Act based on allegations of tampering with onboard diagnostic devices in motor vehicles."
That doesn't mean it's now perfectly legal to delete the emissions on your diesel tractor, however.
"DOJ is committed to sound enforcement principles, efficient use of government resources, and avoiding overcriminalization of federal environmental law. In partnership with the EPA, DOJ will still pursue civil enforcement for these violations when appropriate," DOJ concluded.
The move to stop criminal prosecutions follows the presidential pardon of Troy Lake, who was sentenced to one year in prison for “deleting” emissions systems. Lake was officially pardoned Nov. 7. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, who championed Lake's pardon, also introduced the "Diesel Truck Liberation Act," which would prohibit the federal government from requiring manufacturers to install or maintain emissions control devices or onboard diagnostic systems, among other provisions.
In August, the Environmental Protection Agency announced a "fix" to diesel engine derates, ordering that all post-2027 engines be "engineered to avoid sudden and severe power loss after running out of DEF." EPA also instituted a more relaxed schedule of derates when emissions systems show a fault.
CBS News reported it had seen an internal DOJ memo in which Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche ordered the department "to stop pursuing criminal charges and drop all pending cases targeting the sale of illicit 'defeat devices' that are used to tamper with air pollution control systems in diesel-powered vehicles."
Reasoning for the order detailed in the memo, CBS reported, was a new legal theory that contends Clean Air Act violations could not be prosecuted as crimes, but only as civil offenses.
CBS said the order "could potentially impact more than a dozen pending criminal cases across the country targeting companies and individuals who allegedly sold after-market emissions defeat devices, as well as more than 20 ongoing investigations."
[Related: Deleting emissions problems without deleting the system]
