Justice Department ends criminal prosecutions for diesel defeat devices

Easing enforcement on diesel defeat devices gives truck owners faster, more efficient engines, but it also leaves everyone else breathing more soot and smog. In January, the Justice Department said it would no longer pursue criminal Clean Air Act charges for tampering with onboard diagnostic devices in motor vehicles, a sharp reversal from years of joint criminal and civil pressure with the Environmental Protection Agency.

The policy shift grew out of a crackdown that intensified after the Volkswagen emissions scandal. EPA said on September 18, 2015, that Volkswagen’s software made certain 2009-2015 diesel cars emit up to 40 times more pollution than allowed, turning defeat-device enforcement into a federal priority. That case helped define the harm in plain terms: secret software or hardware changes that make vehicles look cleaner on paper while polluting far more on the road.

EPA says known sales of defeat devices for certain diesel trucks after 2009 and before 2020 produced more than 570,000 tons of excess nitrogen oxides and 5,000 tons of excess particulate matter over the trucks’ lifetimes. Those emissions fall hardest on neighborhoods near diesel traffic, repair shops and freight corridors, where the extra exhaust adds to asthma risk, haze and long-term respiratory damage. The Justice Department said civil enforcement could still continue with EPA, but the new approach removes the threat of criminal charges from a category of cases that had been used to police an expanding market for illicit tuning parts.

Before the policy change, federal prosecutors and EPA pursued a string of cases against sellers, distributors and installers. Rudy’s Performance Parts Inc. and its owner agreed to pay a total of $10 million in criminal fines and civil penalties for manufacturing, selling and installing defeat devices. White’s Diesel Performance Inc. sold and/or installed at least 748 defeat devices and tampered with at least 46 motor vehicles. Meyer Distributing agreed to a civil settlement over the sale of more than 90,000 defeat devices. Other recent actions involved Turn 14 Distribution, Diesel & Offroad Authority and New Jersey mechanic Jonathan Achtemeier, who pleaded guilty in a nationwide conspiracy case involving hundreds of trucks.

The change reportedly affects more than a dozen prosecutions and could touch 20 or more investigations nationwide. Since 2016, most Clean Air Act tampering cases had already been handled administratively by EPA or through civil enforcement, but the criminal retreat still narrows the government’s leverage against pollution cheating. Critics say that weakens deterrence just as regulators are signaling how much excess pollution they are willing to tolerate.