[Enesta Jones] Hello, and welcome to EPA's Greenscene, an environmental podcast you can take with you. I'm Enesta Jones from the Office of Public Affairs. Did you know that there are over 11 million diesel-powered trucks on American highways on any given day? These workhorses are popular, and for good reason. They're powerful, fuel efficient, and durable. They're also a significant source of pollutants, which result in asthma and other respiratory problems for millions of Americans. To help people breathe cleaner air, EPA will give away $300 million under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to help communities across the country start clean diesel projects. To tell us more about this effort and how you could possibly get a pot of money is Jim Blubaugh, from EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality. Jim, welcome to the show. [Jim Blubaugh] Thank you, Enesta. [Enesta Jones] Bad news, Jim, old diesel engines are dirty. Good news, EPA has helped to clean them up. Tell us more about how EPA is on the job with this issue. [Jim Blubaugh] You're right. EPA has been working on this issue for some time. Under the National Clean Diesel Campaign, the agency has put together strong, effective regulations governing new engines ranging from trains to trucks to even lawnmowers. Once those regulations come into full effect, we've estimated that those regulations will result in over 20,000 premature deaths avoided as well as millions of cases of respiratory problems also avoided. But what that does is it does control the emissions from new engines, and what that also does is -- as you mentioned, there's 11 million engines in the existing fleet today. There are technologies and solutions that are available for reducing those emissions, and that's what the National Clean Diesel Campaign is all about. Since 2000, we've been working with fleets and communities across the country providing funds establishing hundreds of projects ranging from retrofitting to replacing school busses, transit busses, bulldozers, et cetera, and we're looking forward to doing more. [Enesta Jones] Any results from our hard work? [Jim Blubaugh] Last year the agency was appropriated $50 million under our diesel emission reduction program. We've used that money to retrofit and replace over 14,000 vehicles across the country. That activity will translate into a public health benefit of up to $1.4 billion. Retrofitting and replacing vehicles provides and immediate benefit. Those benefits can be quantified in over 40,000 tons of NOx emissions reduced, as well as 2,000 tons of particulate matter also reduced. Another thing that the technologies also afford is a potential fuel economy benefit. We've been able to use a portion of that funding to ultimately build projects that are using these more fuel efficient technologies and save fleet owners over 3.2 million gallons of fuel with that same program. [Enesta Jones] $300 million, that's a lot of money. How will that help the agency make further progress in protecting people and creating jobs? [Jim Blubaugh] Well, we'll definitely be able to award that money for effective projects across the country. It's a little hard to predict at this point the actual results that we'll ultimately achieve, but given our track record over the last several years, we believe we'll be able to effectively use that money to protect the environment and ultimately reduce clean diesel -- reduce emissions. The $300 million itself, we believe that we can retrofit tens of thousands of -- retrofit and replace tens of thousands of vehicles and also reduce hundreds of thousands of tons of pollution across the country. Those reductions will result in clearly reduced cases -- reduced cases of asthma, as well as the cases of respiratory issues. The funding is also dedicated, as you mentioned earlier, to help maintain and create jobs, and we believe that $300 million can help us in the diesel engine industry, help create and ultimately retain some jobs in that particular sector, jobs ranging from the assembly line worker that builds the truck or bus as it comes down the assembly line to the repair and maintenance technicians who are ultimately helping these technologies with their on the ground support. [Enesta Jones] Let's cut to the chase. How much is available, and who's eligible? [Jim Blubaugh] We said earlier $300 million under the Recovery Act. It will be distributed by the agency in two separate programs, a national competitive program as well as a state allocation program. The national program itself will comprise the bulk of the money, over $200 million is dedicated to that particular -- those particular competitions and divided into three components. The first component is the National Clean Diesel Funding Assistance Program, and that program is worth over $150 million. Those funds will go -- are dedicated towards on the ground, building traditional clean diesel projects, and the funding to associations like port authorities, school districts, non-profit organizations, state and local governments, et cetera. The second part of the national program is our Clean Diesel Emerging Technologies Program. That program is worth over $20 million, and is really designed to help develop and commercialize the next generation of clean diesel technologies. And then finally, our third component of our national program is our Clean Diesel Finance Program. That program is worth $30 million, and is designed to help us establish clean diesel innovative finance programs across the country. The Smart Way program is -- the objective of the Smart Way program is to reduce emissions as well as improve fuel economy. So saving money on fuel as well as reducing criteria pollutants and greenhouse gases is clearly a win-win. We're particularly interested in this program, because we believe it can help small and medium sized companies who are interested in improving their environmental footprint but they need that financial assist to get started. [Enesta Jones] And Jim, there's a state program, right? [Jim Blubaugh] There is. Thank you for that. The state program itself is worth $88 million, and I'm happy to say all 50 states plus the District of Columbia have elected to participate in this allocation program. Because of that, each entity will be receiving $1.7 million to build their own clean diesel programs. [Enesta Jones] Timing is everything. When will EPA start to award the funding? [Jim Blubaugh] Well, we're telling everyone to be prepared to act fast. You know, we've made a commitment to the president, to the congress, to the administrator to award this money quickly, while at the same time with this main objective of creating and retaining jobs. We've published our request for proposals on our website at epa.gov/recovery. There are two deadlines for people to be aware of. The first is under the national program. Two of the competitions, the finance and the funding assistance program, the deadline is April 29. The third, our emerging technology program, the deadline is May 5. The goal here is to award the national funding in June while at the same time awarding the state money during the month of April. But let me not forget about our own FY09 appropriations as well. The program was lucky enough to receive $60 million under this year's appropriations, and we intend to have similar competitions later on this summer. [Enesta Jones] Thank you for being here today, Jim. [Jim Blubaugh] Thank you. [Enesta Jones] This is good news for both our economy and our environment. To learn more about the Recovery Act funding for the National Clean Diesel Campaign, visit ww.epa.gov/recovery. See you next time on Greenscene.