EPA Awards $1.7M in Recovery Funding for Diesel Retrofits in Georgia

11 July 2009

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded $1,713,235 to the University of Georgia Research Foundation to retrofit on-highway diesel vehicles in Georgia.

The funds are provided under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 (ARRA) National Clean Diesel Funding Assistance Program. Under this funding competition, EPA Region 4 alone received 98 grant applications requesting more than $140 million to help fund clean diesel emissions projects.

This project will retrofit 239 on-highway diesel vehicles in Athens-Clarke and Washington counties in Georgia. The retrofits will operate on ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel, providing long-term emission reductions and reducing particulate matter emissions by 6.4 tons.

The Recovery Act allotted the National Clean Diesel Campaign a total of $300 million, of which the National Clean Diesel Funding Assistance Program received $156 million to fund competitive grants across the nation. The Recovery Act also included $20 million for the National Clean Diesel Emerging Technology Program grants and $30 million for the SmartWay Clean Diesel Finance Program grants.

In addition, under the Recovery Act’s State Clean Diesel Grant program, a total of $88.2 million has been provided to states for clean diesel projects through a noncompetitive allocation process.