The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Justice Department have announced that a crane company will be fined $42.6 million.
The company in question, Manitowoc Company Inc., has been criticized for violating the Clean Air Act’s mobile source emission standards regulations.
The multi-million dollar settlement also includes two company subsidiaries: Grove U.S. L.L.C. and Manitowoc Crane Group Germany GMBH (collectively, Manitowoc).
“Manitowoc’s sale and importation of cranes with uncertified engines violated Clean Air Act requirements designed to protect public health from harmful diesel emissions,” said Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD).
Manitowoc to pay a civil penalty of $42.6 million
The report collated by the Justice Department showed that the settlement resolves allegations against the company that there was an importation and sale of diesel-powered heavy nonroad cranes.
The investigation into the sale and import of these cranes showed that these engines did not meet “applicable Clean Air Act emission standards, and violated related Clean Air Act regulatory requirements, which resulted in the release of excess carcinogenic diesel exhaust containing nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter.”
The EPA case heard that from 2014 to 2018, Manitowoc imported or sold nonroad cranes with at least 1,032 diesel engines that were not covered by EPA-issued certificates of conformity. The bulk of these sales or imported engines did not qualify for any exemption and were not labeled, bonded, or reported correctly under the standards set out in the Clean Air Act.
“For years, Manitowoc imported and sold diesel engines that do not meet Clean Air Act emission standards, even after EPA made clear that such brazen conduct would not be tolerated,” said Assistant Administrator David M. Uhlmann of EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.
The company will be instructed to mitigate harm from the alleged unlawful emissions by “retrofitting a short-line locomotive currently in service in the Sparrows Point, Maryland, area.”
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