The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on Wednesday it is advancing the freedom to fix all vehicles and equipment to ensure that Americans do not have to pay higher costs for repairs.
“Within 30 days of issuing his Presidential Memorandum, President Trump wanted EPA to act. We have operated at Trump speed and provided relief to American operators within just two days,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a written statement. “The freedom to fix allows operators to fix broken machinery easier and faster. Today’s action builds on the great work the Trump Administration has accomplished to lower costs for hard-working Americans.”
The EPA is issuing guidance under the Clean Air Act (CAA) affirming that equipment manufacturers must provide access to the information and tools necessary for timely and affordable repairs, including Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF) and other environmental control systems.
The agency’s move to ensure affordability follows as President Donald Trump signed a presidential memo to ensure that consumers and aftermarket-parts manufacturers can have regulatory certainty about whether aftermarket products can be used in repairs due to the CAA’s prohibition on tampering with emissions controls.
Manufacturers have worked to give consumers and independent repair shops the diagnostic tools and information they provide to franchised dealers. Despite this, Clean Air Act anti-tampering laws have created regulatory ambiguity about whether giving out certain tools and information would be considering enabling the tampering of emission control systems.
This has forced many truckers, famers, and others to take their vehicles and equipment to be done by manufacturers instead of being repaired at home or by a local repair shop.
The EPA’s guidance clarifies that light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicle manufacturers have a longstanding obligation to release the service information, training information, and tools to diagnose and repair vehicles, especially including faulty DEF systems.
The EPA also recognized the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) as an alternative certification authority for aftermarket vehicle parts. Now, American can use SEMA’s Certified Emission (SC-E) Program to show compliance with the CAA and verify that approved aftermarket parts do not negatively impact vehicle emissions.
“Today, the EPA has verified what SEMA for years has told regulators at the state and federal levels: that the automotive aftermarket industry has a precise mechanism to support emissions testing compliance with federal laws, and it’s called SEMA Certified-Emissions,” said SEMA CEO Mike Spagnola in a written statement.
Hellbound and Down 