The Environmental Protection Agency will soon publish a rulemaking intended to exempt glider kit trucks from the sweeping Phase 2 emissions standards enacted by the Obama Administration in 2016, bringing relief to a segment of vehicle makers that said the emissions standards would “decimate” their business.
Instead of simply exempting glider kit vehicles from the Phase 2 tractor-trailer emissions regs, the EPA is instead reclassifying glider kit trucks so that the trucks and their engines, which often were manufactured before 2007 and 2010 emissions standards took effect, “would not be treated as new” vehicles or engines. Such a reinterpretation would mean the EPA lacks authority to regulate “glider vehicles, glider engines and glider kits,” the rule making states.