U.S. EPA Awards Funding to the Community to Reduce Diesel Emissions

March 16, 2018

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 

In June 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Pacific Southwest Region awarded $154,000 in Diesel Emission Reduction Act (DERA) funds to the Gila River Indian Community to replace two pre-2007 school buses with similar models with 2015 or newer engines.

The school buses are owned by the Sacaton Elementary School District.  The U.S. EPA’s DERA program reduces harmful emissions by funding engine replacements, idle reduction and retrofit technologies to clean up a variety of older diesel engines.

“Clean diesel technologies not only improve air quality, but advance innovation and support jobs,” said U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt. “These projects will significantly reduce harmful emissions and directly benefit the health of residents.”

DERA grants are administered by EPA’s West Coast Collaborative, a clean air public-private partnership comprised of EPA’s Pacific Southwest and Pacific Northwest Regions.

Since 2008, the EPA DERA program has awarded nearly 690 grants across the U.S. in 600 communities. Many of these projects fund cleaner diesel engines that operate in economically disadvantaged communities where residents suffer from higher-than-average instances of asthma, heart and lung disease.

Projects funded to date have reduced emissions from more than 60,000 engines.

To learn more about all of this year’s West Coast Collaborative DERA projects, visit: http://www.westcoastcollaborative.org.

For more information about EPA’s National Clean Diesel campaign and the awarded Tribal DERA projects nationally, visit www.epa.gov/cleandiesel.