EPA to limit forklift engine emissions

Nationwide controls to call for a 90% cutback in air-polluting exhaust chemicals from spark-ignited engines.

-- Modern Materials Handling, 1/1/2001

If it moves under engine power, the Environmental Protection Agency will regulate it by 2004 for air pollution if it's not already covered in EPA rules. That's one point made in a post-election regulatory proposal from the agency under the outgoing Clinton Administration.

Lift trucks–along with lawnmowers, snowmobiles, off-road motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles, power boats, and more–will all be affected throughout the U.S. Among forklifts, vehicles run by spark-ignited engines will be covered. (EPA already separately regulates diesel-powered forklift exhaust emissions.)

These previously unregulated sources of exhaust emissions, EPA says, lead to ozone or smog formation. Or the emissions are directly hazardous, as is carbon monoxide (CO) in high concentrations.

EPA will use emission standards already set by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) as a starting point for nationwide rules. CARB's state standards began phasing in on January 1, 2001. They take full effect 3 yr later in 2004.

Application of auto emission control technologies to spark-ignited engines on lift trucks, EPA says, can reduce exhaust levels of CO, nitrogen oxides, and hydrocarbons by 90%.

Member companies of the Industrial Truck Association (ITA) are well along toward compliance with the CARB standard. "So we're not overly concerned" about the EPA near-term proposal, says Gary Cross, attorney for Dunaway & Cross, ITA's law firm, "so long as the EPA and CARB emission limits and other compliance requirements stay the same.

"We remain concerned, however," Cross continues, "over EPA's misperception of the extent to which we can easily adapt auto emission control technology to forklift engines and do so with effective and durable controls within such a short time frame."

EPA's proposal (see the December 7, 2000 Federal Register) encourages use of electronic fuel injection and catalytic converters similar to those on gasoline-fueled auto engines. But about 80% of spark-ignited forklifts in the U.S. have LPG-fueled engines. They use an air/LPG mixing technology largely unchanged since the 1980s. Emission control technology for LPG engines is still under development.

The federal agency's proposal also hints of areas where it may go beyond the CARB standard. Near-term emission limits will be the same as CARB's: 3 g/hp-hr for hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides and 37 g/hp-hr for CO. But EPA says it may need a more stringent standard for in-use deterioration of controls. Rules may cover transient engine operation as well as set limits on evaporative emissions from gasoline engines. And EPA may opt for fuel-specific rules. (CARB has a one-size-fits-all approach, regardless of fuel type.)

Possible differences in control strategies trouble attorney Cross. There's unnecessary duplication and uncertainty in two sets of rules, he says. Lift truck manufacturers would prefer better coordination between EPA and CARB "so we achieve compliance once and for all, and then let us go about our business," Cross says.