The United States and the state of California have reached an agreement in principle with truck engine maker Cummins on a $1.6 billion penalty to resolve claims that the company violated the Clean Air Act by using devices installed on hundreds of thousands of engines to circumvent emissions controls. The Ministry of Justice announced this on Friday.
The penalty would be the largest ever under the Clean Air Act and the second-largest environmental penalty ever in the United States.
Defeat devices are parts or software that bypass, override, or disable emissions controls such as pollution sensors and on-board computers. They allow vehicles to pass emissions tests and still emit high levels of smog-causing pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, which are linked to asthma and other respiratory diseases.
The Justice Department has accused the company of installing defeat devices in 630,000 RAM 2500 and 3500 pickup truck engines from the 2013 to 2019 model years. The company also allegedly secretly installed additional emissions control devices in 330,000 RAM 2500 and 3500 pickup truck engines from the 2019 to 2023 model years.
Stellantis, the company that makes the trucks, has already recalled the 2019 model year trucks and has initiated a recall of the 2013 to 2018 model year trucks.
“Violations of our environmental laws have noticeable consequences. They are causing real harm to people in communities across the country,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “This historic agreement should make it clear that the Department of Justice will act vigorously in its efforts to hold accountable those who seek to profit at the expense of people’s health and safety.”
In a statement, Cummins said it had “seen no evidence that anyone acted in bad faith and is not admitting any wrongdoing.”
The company said it has “cooperated fully with the relevant regulators, has already addressed many of the related issues and looks forward to achieving certainty in concluding this protracted matter.” Cummins conducted a comprehensive internal review, working for more than four years with the supervisory authorities.”
The Justice Department worked with the Environmental Protection Agency to investigate the matter. The EPA has intensified its investigation into illegal emissions control software since the 2015 Volkswagen scandal, when it was discovered that the automaker had illegally installed the devices in millions of diesel cars worldwide.
In 2016, Volkswagen agreed to pay up to $14.7 billion as part of a consumer class action lawsuit. The company agreed to buy back about 430,000 of the roughly 11 million cars on which it had installed the fraud software worldwide.
In 2020, another EPA investigation found that individual owners and operators of more than half a million diesel pickup trucks had illegally disabled their vehicles' emissions control technology.
“The EPA is in office because of the findings of the Volkswagen scandal and its oversight has increased significantly,” said Luke Tonachel, a clean vehicle policy expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group. “Our government must continue to be vigilant to ensure fraud does not continue.”