EU has learned from Volkswagen scandal

In September 2015, the United States's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) discovered that Volkswagen had been cheatingregulators and manipulating their vehicles to show lower amounts of emissions during laboratory tests than on the road in real use.

A year later, the European Union's Committee of Inquiry into Emissions Measurements in the Automotive Sector talked with Christopher Grundler, the director of the EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality, about how US emission laws differ from EU law, and why the US government was able to catch VW when the EU wasn't. 

Grundler, the man to whom VW officials admitted cheating, sat down with DW to talk about what advantages US regulators have over EU regulators, and how the EU has and can still improve its oversight of the automotive sector.

DW: What do you think is the biggest difference between US and EU regulations when it comes to emissions standards?

Grundler: That’s easy to answer. It’s the United States Clean Air Act. The Clean Air Act provides the EPA with very broad and centralized authority in one place to assess, understand and address air pollution from the transportation sector. We’ve used it and we know it’s working because our air quality monitors are showing it.

Clearly, the context in Europe is different, with 28 member states and many different types of approval authorities, the [European] Commission does not have investigatory or enforcement powers. We [at the US] think it’s a strength to have this all located in one place and to have the technical resources and the laboratory all co-located to do this work. Another strength I noted was the way we do our work through a very collaborative and transparent process, so everyone can look at the information and understand the basis for decisions we make.

DW: So would you say that the US benefits from having one central authority that’s making all the decisions?

Grundler: Oh without a doubt. In the United States, there is no constituency for delegating this work to 50 different states. It’s one car market. People take the vehicles across borders. That would be a nightmare if it were subject to different approaches, different standards and different interpretations across the states.

With our context, with our history, under our law, it has worked. But I want your readers to understand that we’ve had to adapt and change throughout the years to respond to changing technology and changing circumstances. No system is perfect, but it has been a big advantage to have one organization with a laboratory and with deep technical competencies oversee this sector.

DW: What is the EU doing wrong?

Grundler: Nice try. (laughter)

DW: What could the EU learn from the US model?

Grundler: I think they have learned, to be frank about it. No one in the United States or in fact, in Europe, should be surprised about the discrepancy between lab tests, and the Commission has been reporting on it for quite some time. I don’t have detailed knowledge, but from afar, it seems as though the Commission is attempting to address it with new real-world testing requirements as well as their proposal to address the approval process. Both seem to us as steps in the right direction.