The Department of Justice released new details of a settlement with engine manufacturer Cummins Inc. Wednesday that includes a mandatory recall of 600,000 Ram trucks, and that Cummins remedy environmental damage it caused when it illegally installed emissions control software in several thousand vehicles, skirting emissions testing.
Cummins is accused of circumventing emissions testing through devices that can bypass or defeat emissions controls. The engine manufacturer will pay a $1.675 billion civil penalty to settle claims – previously announced in December and the largest ever secured under the Clean Air Act – in addition to $325 million on remedies.
That brings Cummins’ total penalty for the violations to more than $2 billion, per Wednesday’s announcement, which officials from the U.S. Justice Department, Environmental Protection Agency, California Air Resources Board and the California Attorney General called “landmark” in a call with reporters Wednesday.
“Let’s this settlement be a lesson: We won’t let greedy corporations cheat their way to success and run over the health and wellbeing of consumers and our environment along the way,” California AG Rob Bonta said.
Over the course of a decade, hundreds of thousands of Ram 2500 and 3500 pickup trucks – manufactured by Stellantis – were equipped with Cummins diesel engines that incorporated the bypassing engine control software. This includes 630,000 installed with illegal defeat devices and 330,000 equipped with undisclosed auxiliary emission control devices.
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AP Auto Writer Tom Krisher contributed.
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Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate solutions reporter. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @ast.john. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.
