Make Diesels
Great Again

The Laundering of American Regulatory Policy

An advocacy
Position
↓
became a
Rule
↓
Killing
Combustion
Engines
↓
which became a
Crime
↓
which resulted in
Prison
↓
which required
Pardons
↓
This must
STOP
↓
with a return to
Common Sense Regulations
NOx 2.5 PM 0.10
Make a Change

Breaking this cycle takes lawyers, filings, and time in Washington. The Diesel Freedom Coalition is funded by the mechanics, farmers, and owner-operators it fights for. Every dollar goes to replacing the mandate with common sense standards.

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The Cycle, Step by Step

How a Position Becomes a Prison Sentence

Money laundering takes dirty cash and runs it through enough hands that it comes out looking clean. Regulatory laundering does the same thing with an opinion. It goes in as advocacy and comes out as a felony, and at no point does anyone who answers to voters sign off on it.

1

An Advocacy Position

It starts as an opinion. Activist groups and agency staff decide that the internal combustion engine should go away. That is a political position, not a law. Nobody in Congress voted on it.

2

The Position Became a Rule

The EPA wrote the position into technology-forcing mandates: EGR in 2004, diesel particulate filters in 2007, SCR and DEF in 2010. The agency projected modest costs. The real invoices ran two to five times higher, and the trucks derate, regen, and limp home. See the 20-Year Audit for the full record.

3

The Rule Became a Crime

Once the hardware was mandated, touching it became tampering under the Clean Air Act. A repair decision made in a shop, at a customer's request, turned into a federal felony. No new law was passed to do this. The rule did it.

4

The Crime Resulted in Prison

Troy Lake, founder of Elite Diesel Service in Cheyenne, Wyoming, was prosecuted in 2024 for fixing trucks the way his customers asked him to fix them. He served seven months in federal custody. Owner-operators, farmers, and shop owners across the country face the same exposure.

5

Which Required Pardons

On November 7, 2025, President Trump granted Troy a full and unconditional pardon. On February 12, 2026, Elite Diesel Service itself was pardoned, a rare second action for a company. It took two acts of presidential clemency to undo what one regulatory position set in motion.

6

This Must Stop

A pardon fixes one case. It does not fix the machine that produced it. The cycle keeps running until the mandate itself is replaced. That is the laundering of American regulatory policy: an opinion goes in one end, and a prison sentence comes out the other, with no vote in between.

The Fix

What Common Sense Regulations Look Like

Nobody is asking for zero rules. The coalition is asking for performance standards instead of hardware mandates: tell the engine what it has to put out, measure it in the real world, and let engineers and mechanics decide how to get there.

NOx 2.5
Grams per brake-horsepower-hour
The pre-2007 performance level for nitrogen oxides. The big emission cuts in diesel history came before this line, through engine design, injection timing, and fuel quality. Everything after it bought smaller gains at far higher cost.
PM 0.10
Grams per brake-horsepower-hour
The particulate matter level that modern diesels can meet without a filter that clogs, a regen cycle that strands trucks, or a fluid the EPA never priced into its own projections.
30 Days

National enforcement discretion guidance for existing engines during the transition.

90 Days

Interim performance-based standards, measured with portable emissions equipment on the road.

6 Months

A joint working group of mechanics, fleets, and manufacturers to finalize the targets.

★ ★ ★

Break the Cycle

Share the poster. Back H.R. 8079, the Diesel Truck Liberation Act. Fund the fight. Every person who sees that poster is one more who understands how this machine works.

Fund The FightRead H.R. 8079The 20-Year Audit
Source documents: DFC Brief to the SBA Office of Advocacy · Brief Summary