The Non-Financial Ledger: What Money Doesn’t Cover

There is a crane operator in a port city who spent years breathing exhaust from machines that were never supposed to be legal. He doesn’t know that. Nobody told him. He wasn’t in the room when the lawyers negotiated the consent decree. His lungs weren’t a line item.

When Manitowoc and its subsidiaries built and sold hundreds of mobile cranes with uncertified engines, they weren’t just breaking a rule on paper. They were pumping NOx and particulate matter into the air around every construction site, port facility, and industrial yard where those machines operated. NOx, nitrogen oxides, contributes directly to ground-level ozone, the thick, invisible chemical soup that makes it harder to breathe on hot days in cities where people don’t have the luxury of staying inside. Particulate matter, the microscopic solid and liquid particles suspended in exhaust, bypasses the nose and throat entirely and lodges deep in the lungs and bloodstream. The people most exposed to this aren’t the executives in Milwaukee. They’re the crane operators, the dock workers, the welders, the people whose job keeps them within twenty feet of a diesel engine for eight to ten hours a day.

The federal certification process for engines isn’t bureaucratic red tape invented to inconvenience corporations. It exists because decades of science established that unregulated diesel combustion kills people, slowly and statistically, in ways that never make the evening news. A child with asthma who has a severe attack in August near a port served by uncertified cranes will never trace her hospitalization to a product management decision made in a corporate office. The legal system isn’t built to make that connection either. That’s why the consent decree is silent on individual harm. The law settled for $42.6 million and one locomotive retrofit. The harm settled for nothing.

The communities that absorb this pollution are not random. Port cities, construction zones, and industrial corridors are where working-class people, many of them Black, brown, and immigrant, do the physical work of moving things. Environmental justice researchers have documented for decades that this is where dirty engines, dirty factories, and dirty air concentrate. Manitowoc sold cranes. The cranes went to work. The pollution stayed behind with the people who couldn’t leave.

There is also the betrayal of trust at the regulatory level. The company allegedly failed to file required annual reports and import declaration forms. That means the EPA’s ability to track these violations and intervene early was deliberately or negligently undermined. Every year of delay is another year of uncertified engines running at full throttle. The consent decree cannot buy back those years. The penalty cannot undo the chemistry that already happened inside someone’s bronchial tubes.

The defendants in this case do not admit liability. That is standard legal language and it means exactly what it sounds like: the corporation that made and sold these cranes will write a $42.6 million check and go back to work without ever being required to say, in court, on the record, in plain English: we did this, and it caused harm. The people who breathed that air never get that acknowledgment. They never will.

Legal Receipts: What the Court Documents Actually Say

The consent decree, filed December 19, 2024, contains specific factual allegations and enforceable commitments. These are not summaries or paraphrases. They are direct text from the court record.

“The Complaint alleges that Defendants manufactured and illegally imported, sold, offered for sale, and/or introduced or delivered for introduction into United States commerce mobile cranes utilizing engines that were not covered by the certificates of conformity required under the Act.”

“These alleged violations involved 59 uncertified ‘motor vehicle’ truck cranes that were subject to greenhouse gas (‘GHG’) certification requirements applicable to on-highway vehicles, 392 ‘nonroad’ truck cranes that were equipped with motor vehicle engines lacking required nonroad certifications, three uncertified cranes containing nonroad compression-ignition engines that were authorized for export only, and over five hundred cranes containing uncertified nonroad compression-ignition engines that were disqualified from, or in excess of, Defendants’ allowance under the Transition Program for Equipment Manufacturers (‘TPEM’) regulations.”

“Defendants also failed to meet certain labeling requirements… and violated reporting requirements, including annual reporting and import declaration form requirements.”

“Within 30 Days after the Effective Date, Defendants shall pay, collectively, the total sum of $42,600,000.00 as a civil penalty… Defendants are jointly and severally responsible for the payment amount.”

“Defendants shall implement a plan to retrofit, with a Tier 4 engine, a locomotive operating in the Sparrows Point, Maryland area and currently powered by a 1750 horsepower Tier 0 engine… the locomotive was expected to remain in use for at least another 25 years.”

Societal Impact Mapping: Who Actually Pays the Price

Environmental Degradation

The consent decree itself defines the two primary pollutants at the center of this case and acknowledges that mitigation is required because real environmental harm occurred.

• NOx emissions from uncertified engines contribute directly to ground-level ozone (smog). The decree defines NOx as “the sum of nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide, and other oxides of nitrogen originating from combustion-related emissions.” Ozone is a respiratory irritant that damages lung tissue on repeated exposure, particularly in urban and industrial areas where the cranes operated.
• Particulate matter (PM) from uncertified compression-ignition engines is among the most dangerous air pollutants by volume of public health damage. The decree defines PM as “a form of air pollution originating from combustion-related emissions composed of microscopic solids and liquids suspended in air.” Fine PM particles penetrate deep into lung tissue and enter the bloodstream, with documented links to cardiovascular disease, stroke, and premature death.
• Over 500 cranes exceeded or were disqualified from the TPEM allowance program, meaning their emission levels were unknown and unmonitored for the period they operated. The TPEM exists specifically to allow regulators to track how much excess pollution transitional engines are generating. Exceeding or being disqualified from TPEM means those cranes operated entirely outside the regulatory accounting system.
• Three cranes marked “export only” were introduced into U.S. commerce, meaning they were specifically flagged as too dirty for American air quality standards but were sold here anyway. These cranes represent the clearest possible statement of corporate intent: these engines cannot meet U.S. standards, so sell them somewhere with weaker rules; instead, they came here.
• The mitigation project, replacing a single Tier 0 locomotive with a Tier 4 unit near Baltimore, is described in the decree as intended to “mitigate estimated excess NOx and PM emissions from the alleged uncertified engines.” The decree requires mitigation near ports of entry and crane operating locations, acknowledging that the pollution burden is geographically concentrated around port communities and industrial areas.

Public Health

NOx and PM are not abstract regulatory concerns; they are the chemical drivers of preventable disease in the communities where these cranes worked.

• Ground-level ozone, generated by NOx reacting with sunlight, triggers asthma attacks, reduces lung function, and inflames airway tissue. Children, the elderly, and people with pre-existing respiratory conditions are most vulnerable. Construction zones and port areas are not remote; they are surrounded by neighborhoods where people live, go to school, and breathe.
• Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure is associated with increased risk of heart attack, stroke, lung cancer, and premature death. Workers who operate cranes or work in proximity to them, including riggers, spotters, flaggers, and nearby tradespeople, face concentrated, sustained exposure that far exceeds what the average urban resident receives from ambient air pollution.
• The labeling violations mean that workers operating these cranes had no way to know the engines had not been certified. OSHA-required safety information relies in part on equipment certifications. Workers have a right to know what they are operating and what it is emitting. Manitowoc’s failure to apply required labels stripped workers of that right.
• The Sparrows Point, Maryland area, where the mitigation locomotive is located, is part of the Baltimore industrial corridor. Baltimore ranks among the most polluted cities in the Mid-Atlantic for ozone and PM2.5. Adding hundreds of uncertified crane engines to a region already carrying a heavy pollution burden compounds existing health disparities in communities that already carry more than their share.

Economic Inequality

Corporate air pollution enforcement creates a two-tier system: companies pay fines calibrated to what they can afford, while the people who bear the health costs pay with their bodies, their time, and their money.

• The $42.6 million penalty is paid by a major industrial corporation to the federal government’s general enforcement fund. None of that money goes to the workers, residents, or communities who absorbed the pollution. There is no victim compensation mechanism in this decree. No medical monitoring fund. No community health program. The payment is government-to-government, full stop.
• Crane operators and construction workers are paid hourly wages. They do not get hazard pay for breathing uncertified exhaust. They do not get sick leave benefits robust enough to cover the long-term chronic illnesses associated with diesel exposure. The health costs of this pollution will ultimately be borne by individuals through out-of-pocket medical expenses, lost workdays, and reduced quality of life.
• The defendant corporations are explicitly barred from deducting the civil penalty from their federal income taxes. Section 11 of the decree states: “Defendants shall not deduct any penalties paid under this Decree.” This is a meaningful protection but does not change the fundamental asymmetry: a $42.6 million penalty is a defined corporate cost that can be absorbed, budgeted, and managed. The health consequences of PM exposure cannot be budgeted by the individual who experiences them.
• Manitowoc is headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its executive leadership and legal counsel will weather this enforcement action comfortably. The workers loading ships in Baltimore, the construction teams in port-adjacent neighborhoods, and the families living near crane operating zones will not receive a check or a notice or even an acknowledgment that their air was compromised.

The “Cost of a Life” Metric

The penalty number only means something when you put it next to the scale of what it bought.

What Now: Watchlist and What You Can Do

This settlement resolves the civil penalty, but the consent decree remains active until Manitowoc completes its mitigation project and all reporting requirements are satisfied. These are the people, agencies, and actions that matter going forward.

Corporate Leadership on the Record

The consent decree names specific individuals and roles. These are the people with legal obligations under this document.

• Brian Regan, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, The Manitowoc Company, Inc.: Named as the designated recipient of penalty payment instructions from the DOJ Financial Litigation Unit. His contact information is written into the court document.
• General Counsel, The Manitowoc Company, Inc.: Named in the notice provision (generalcounsel@manitowoc.com). All official communications regarding the decree flow through this office. If the company violates the decree, this is the person who should be getting notified and taking responsibility.
• Jennifer Peterson, The Manitowoc Company, Inc.: Also named in the decree’s notice provision as a designated contact.
• The Defendants collectively include Grove U.S. L.L.C. and Manitowoc Crane Group Germany GmbH, both jointly and severally liable for the full $42.6 million penalty and all mitigation obligations.

Regulatory Watchlist

These are the agencies with active or relevant jurisdiction over this case and this industry.

• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance: The primary regulator overseeing the consent decree. The decree names David Uhlmann as Assistant Administrator, Rosemarie A. Kelley as Director of the Office of Civil Enforcement, and Mary E. Greene as Director of the Air Enforcement Division. These are the officials whose offices approved this settlement. Their contact addresses are in the court record.
• U.S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division: The DOJ prosecuted this case. The decree references the EES Case Management Unit and identifies Jason A. Dunn as Assistant Section Chief, Environmental Enforcement Section. DOJ retains the right to pursue additional remedies if the consent decree is violated.
• EPA Region 3 (Mid-Atlantic): Specifically named in the payment notice process (R3_Hearing_Clerk@epa.gov). Region 3 covers the Baltimore/Maryland area where the mitigation locomotive project will be executed. This regional office will have oversight over the Sparrows Point retrofit.
• U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Division: The Court retains jurisdiction over the consent decree until it is terminated. Any disputes between Manitowoc and the government go before this court. Members of the public may submit comments during the 30-day public notice and comment period required by 28 C.F.R. § 50.7.
• OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration): While not a party to this decree, OSHA governs worker protection standards in construction and industrial settings where these cranes operate. Workers who believe their health was compromised by uncertified engine exhaust may have separate OSHA-related recourse depending on their specific circumstances.

What You Can Do

• File public comments on this consent decree. The decree is required to be lodged with the court for at least 30 days for public notice and comment under 28 C.F.R. § 50.7. Written comments from the public can be submitted during this period and the government is required to consider them. Comments can be sent to the DOJ Environment and Natural Resources Division at eescdcopy.enrd@usdoj.gov, referencing DJ # 90-5-2-1-12216. Demand that mitigation funds be directed to affected communities, not just one locomotive.
• If you are a crane operator or construction worker who has worked with Manitowoc or Grove equipment, document your exposure. Contact your union, a workers’ rights organization, or an environmental justice legal clinic about your options. The consent decree does not extinguish third-party claims by individuals who suffered harm.
• Support organizations doing environmental justice work in port communities. Baltimore, where the mitigation project is located, has active environmental justice organizations working on industrial pollution. Groups focused on Baltimore’s industrial waterfront communities and fence-line pollution are doing the work the consent decree does not.
• Demand that your elected representatives push for stronger Clean Air Act enforcement that includes community remediation funds. The current framework allows companies to pay penalties to the government’s general fund with minimal direct benefit to communities. Federal legislation requiring fines to fund community health programs in affected areas is one concrete reform that would change this dynamic. Contact your U.S. Representative and Senators.
• Monitor Manitowoc’s compliance with the locomotive retrofit deadline. The decree requires the Tier 0 engine to be destroyed and the Tier 4 engine installed within 18 months of the Effective Date. Semi-annual compliance reports must be filed by January 31st and July 31st each year. These reports are public record. Track them through the EPA’s enforcement database and the Eastern District of Wisconsin court docket (Case 2:24-cv-01635).
• If you work in or live near a port or industrial zone where Manitowoc or Grove cranes operate, organize with your neighbors. Cumulative pollution burden in industrial communities is a documented phenomenon. Local air quality monitoring networks, mutual aid health funds, and community-led environmental monitoring projects put data in the hands of people who need it, independent of what corporations and regulators choose to report.