42 U.S.C. § 16092 — Diesel truck retrofit and fleet modernization program

(a) Establishment. The Administrator, working with the Secretary of Energy, must run a competitive grant program that helps public agencies modernize their fleets, including by installing retrofit pollution-control technology on diesel trucks. (b) Eligible recipients. Only a state or local government, or an agency of one or more state or local governments, can get a grant — and it must pass the money along, giving preference to ports and other big trucking operations. (c) Awards. (1) The Administrator must try hard to spread grants broadly across the country. (2) The Administrator must favor proposals that will cut the most nonmethane hydrocarbon, nitrogen oxide, or particulate matter emissions per proposal or per truck, or that use EPA- or California-verified retrofit technology on trucks that will run entirely on ultra-low sulfur diesel after September 2006. (d) Conditions of grant. To get a grant: the trucks being retrofitted (which are replacing scrapped trucks) must run on ultra-low sulfur diesel wherever that fuel is reasonably available or legally required; those trucks must have been built in 1998 or earlier; and they must be used to haul cargo, especially at ports, or in other major hauling operations. Grant money can only pay for buying the retrofit technology, including state taxes and contract fees. Recipients must cover at least 50% of the total retrofit cost — including the technology and all installation labor — from sources other than this grant. (e) Verification. Within 90 days of August 8, 2005, the Administrator had to publish, in the Federal Register, procedures for making these grants; for verifying that trucks getting the retrofit will actually run on diesel with no more than 15 parts per million of sulfur after September 2006; and for verifying that grants are being administered correctly. (f) Authorization of appropriations. Congress authorized, staying available until spent: $20,000,000 for 2006; $35,000,000 for 2007; $45,000,000 for 2008; and whatever amount is needed for 2009 and 2010.