This coverage is made possible through a partnership between BPR and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.
Just before the July 4 weekend, President Donald Trump issued a presidential pardon to a Hendersonville mechanic who was convicted of violating the Clean Air Act in 2022. The pardon came alongside 10 others, most of whom were Clean Air Act violators around the country.
Matthew Sidney Geouge, who founded a company called Spartan Diesel Technologies, was accused of manufacturing and selling around 14,000 “tuners,” a device that allows Ford diesel trucks to get around federal emissions regulations by bypassing the need for certain expensive parts, like diesel filters and exhaust gas recirculation systems.
The EPA sent notice of violation to Geouge in 2015, but Geouge ignored it, along with resulting penalties owed to EPA for the violations. Geouge also owed back taxes to the IRS. Geouge was sentenced in 2022 to one year and one day of prison time and subsequent probation.
Federal deregulatory actions over the course of early 2026 paved the way for this pardon. In January, the Environmental Protection Agency repealed its 2009 endangerment finding, a landmark ruling that allowed the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas polluters. In January, the Department of Justice stopped prosecuting all similar cases to Geouge’s as crimes, saying it could still be pursued as civil offenses.
“It is my Great Honor to have just signed Pardons for six people who were persecuted by the Biden Administration, and were in, or being sent to, prison, for ‘fixing their car,’” said Trump in a post on his social media site, Truth Social, where he announced six of the pardons. Proponents of these pardons say that these emission-reducing vehicle parts necessitate expensive repairs and are burdensome for truck owners and operators.
However, vehicle emissions are a major threat to human health, said Andrew Whelan, director of communications strategy at CleanAIRE NC, which works to reduce air pollution and advocate for air quality throughout North Carolina. Vehicle emissions include not only carbon dioxide, but carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, and soot pollution, which can enter the bloodstream. EPA regulations existed for a reason, Whelan said.
“They're in place to protect public health,” he said. “These pollutants can cause serious health problems, including asthma, heart disease, stroke, and even cancer. And the risk to children and the elderly is especially high.”
Whelan said since the Endangerment Finding was passed in 2009, North Carolina has seen significant air quality improvements.
“The EPA rules are supposed to serve as a national safety floor to protect public health, but by lowering that floor, the federal government is shifting the entire burden onto states and local governments, which are often struggling with the resources to adequately respond to these challenges,” Whelan told BPR.
The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality told BPR that the process for holding Clean Air Act violators accountable remains the same. “The EPA retains authority at the federal level to investigate and enforce potential violations of the Clean Air Act related to motor vehicle engine standards and modifying emissions control devices in vehicles,” said DEQ Air Quality Division spokesperson Shawn Taylor in an email. “When DEQ receives any such complaints or evidence of possible violations, we refer those to EPA for investigation.”
Geouge did not respond to requests for comment by press time.
