GE lobbies EPA on train diesel controls

General Electric Co., which is running a marketing campaign promoting itself as environmentally friendly, has pushed to weaken smog controls for railroad locomotives in rules about to be proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

The rules, which could take effect between 2011 and 2017, are designed to cut smog and soot levels and would replace standards adopted in 1997, the paper said, adding that a proposal from the EPA could come this month. (MSNBC.com is a joint venture between Microsoft and NBC, which is owned by GE.)

The conglomerate told the EPA, in a December letter reviewed by the Journal, that catalytic converters used to meet EPA emissions reductions imposed earlier on trucks and off-road construction equipment have “fundamental limitations” that make their durability on locomotives unlikely, the paper said.

Early on Tuesday, Patrick Jarvis, a spokesman for GE’s transportation unit, confirmed that the company was in technical discussions with the EPA “on how to achieve attainable and sustainable emissions reductions.”

Those discussions include talk of technology that will have to be developed in order to meet the proposed cuts, he said.

The EPA wants a limit of 1.3 grams per horsepower per hour’s operation of nitrogen oxides, which cause smog, the Journal said. GE is advocating a 1.9-gram limit and said in the December letter that achieving that level would require “significantly high-risk technology breakthroughs,” the paper said.

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Current rules set a limit of 5.5 grams, the paper said.

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“This is not a dispute over whether GE shares EPA’s goals for reducing (nitrogen oxides),” Jarvis wrote in an e-mail. “The discussion centers on whether the level discussed by EPA is technologically achievable and whether the level will be sustainable for the useful life of the locomotive.”

EPA was not immediately available to comment.

GE, whose operations also include jet engines and commercial lending, has a hybrid freight locomotive in development, Jarvis said, with a prototype due later this year.