DC stands to get $8.125 million from Volkswagen as part of their settlement resulting from the civil enforcement case, Volkswagen “Clean Diesel” Marketing, Sales, Practices, and Products Liability Litigation. And other states and Puerto Rico will get some too.
The litigation stems from VW’s use of a defeat device in its vehicles. A defeat device is a motor vehicle hardware, software, or design that interferes with or disables emissions controls under real world driving conditions, even if the vehicle passes formal emissions testing. Use of this defeat device led to excess oxides of nitrogen (NOx) being emitted into the atmosphere. The litigation was settled by a Partial Consent Decree, which put in place a Mitigation Trust Fund that will allocate $2.925 billion to the states, Puerto Rico, and the District. The purpose of the Mitigation Trust is to fund eligible mitigation actions that replace diesel emission sources with cleaner technology to reduce excess emissions of NOXcaused by the violating cars. The District is expected to receive a total of $8.125 million of settlement funds from this litigation. The funding is to be utilized on eligible mitigation actions, as defined in the Partial Consent Decree.
Now, investing the money in walking and biking would be a great way to compensate for the added NOx emissions but, unfortunately, that's not allowed. According to the settlement, all eligible mitigation actions involve replacing dirty engines with less dirty engines. Jurisdictions can use the money to replace old trucks, buses, freight switchers, ferries and tugs, shorepower, airport ground support vehicles, fork lifts, port cargo handling equipment, electric car charging stations (only up to 15%), or certain Diesel Emission Reduction Act eligible programs (not the "Conserve by Bicycling Program" which I don't think ever happened).
I wonder how many of these things Volkswagen makes and how this settlement was negotiated.
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