Dec. 22 (UPI) — The Department of Justice said Friday Cummins Inc. has reached an agreement in principle with the United States and California to pay a $1.675 billion penalty to settle Clean Air Act violation claims.
It’s the largest civil penalty ever secured under the Clean Air Act, according to the Justice Department.
The claims alleged that emissions defeat devices on hundreds of thousands of Cummins engines violated the Clean Air Act by allowing harmful emissions of nitrogen oxides.
“The types of devices we allege that Cummins installed in its engines to cheat federal environmental laws have a significant and harmful impact on people’s health and safety,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “For example, in this case, our preliminary estimates suggest that defeat devices on some Cummins engines have caused them to produce thousands of tons of excess emissions of nitrogen oxides.”
Garland added long-term exposure to a cascading effect of those pollutants can lead to breathing issues like asthma as well as respiratory infections.
Cummins allegedly installed emissions defeat devices on 630,000 model year 2013 to 2019 RAM 2500 and 3500 pickup truck engines, according to the Justice Department. The company also allegedly installed “auxiliary emission control devices ” on 330,000 2019-2023 RAM 2500 and 3500 pickup engines.
The Department of Justice also sued Ebay in September for allegedly selling or offering for sale 343,000 aftermarket defeat devices to bypass required emissions controls in violation of the Clean Air Act.
That suit was filed on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency in federal court in Brooklyn.
This summer Fiat Chrysler Automobiles executive Emanuele Palma pleaded guilty to a felony conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act by using “software defeat devices” to lower vehicle emissions during testing on Jeep Grand Cherokee and Ram 1500 diesel vehicles.
Daimler AG and U.S. subsidiary Mercedes-Benz agreed to a $1.75 billion settlement in 2020 over emissions systems Clean Air Act violations that included a civil penalty of $875 million.