Posted on 11/08/2025 2:01:50 PM PST by CFW
President Donald Trump pardoned Troy Lake on Friday.
The 65-year-old Wyoming diesel mechanic spent seven months in federal prison for tweaking and removing emissions systems on ailing engines. He was originally sentenced to one year and one day in prison, but was released early to home confinement with an ankle monitor in September.
He and his business Elite Diesel were also fined $52,000.
Though relieved to be free of the dismal prison in which he spent his 40th wedding anniversary and his 65th birthday, Lake said that he believed he’d spend the rest of his life as a convicted felon, unable to vote, hold public office, or possess or hunt with firearms.
Until Friday.
(Excerpt) Read more at cowboystatedaily.com ...
That coincided with the EPA tightening emissions standards on heavy diesel trucks in 2004, and again in 2007.
Removing or “deleting” emissions control systems wasn’t Troy Lake’s main business at that time. Not even close. He ran a successful shop with six service trucks and jobs in the gold mining industry, Holly Lake told Cowboy State Daily.
“But customers of ours, quite a few of them, would buy new trucks every year and start running into those issues — and they’d ask Dad if he could fix it,” said TJ. “And we found a way.”
Good for Trump!
Hear!, Hear!
Have they pardoned the EPA regulators from the need to continue reporting to work and drawing a salary for their utter stupidity and over-reach. And have they repealed the stupid regulations.
Dealers cheat all the time.
Trump is the Man.
There are diesel exhaust fluid delete kit all over the place. There is a site that explains how to make your own for about $50.
I wonder how this is different than what he did?
Wonderful!!!
What a screwed up country we live in.
A productive business owner put in jail for a year for removing (often defective) diesel emission systems on trucks.
Where in most cities, mentally-ill felons with violent histories are released again and again after each violent felony
“That’s a notion lifelong trucker Cole Stevens, whose family owns Oklahoma-based Stevens Trucking, noted in his own interview with Cowboy State Daily when the outlet first broke Troy Lake’s story Aug. 2.
Stevens is an industry expert who doesn’t know and hasn’t worked with Troy Lake.
Almost everybody I know that’s like a conservative, three-quarter-ton owner deletes their just, regular day-to-day pickup trucks,” he said.
But because his business is so high-profile, added Stevens, he doesn’t indulge in the practice.
“When the federal government started to regulate all these emissions deals, there’s all these evaporators and all these sensors that are just overkill; it actually makes the engines burn so hot you actually have way more engine problems,” he said.
It’s tough to tell if the new systems’ particulate treatments are worth the damages they’ve wrought on the industry and the hazards they’ve caused, he said, because the major manufacturers have sunk billions of dollars into them to appease what Stevens cast as a rushed government pipe dream — “and nobody’s doing any tests for non-DEF systems anymore. Nobody’s making that argument.” “
Yea, I read the article but I still wonder how DEF delete kits are different than what he did.
It’s probably a capital offense in California for doing what this guy did in Wyoming. The EPA shouldn’t be able to mandate anything on my diesel tractor.
I have no idea. But since it's so important to you, I'll look into it and get back to you...........
The federal government ruined kerosene space heaters with their BS “mandates”. And made kerosene K-1 obscenely expensive, besides turning it into garbage.
No, it's not. It's government regulatory garbage.
Guys that make a lot of money probably don't want want to mess around with something that MIGHT work.
Things to do, places to be and people to meet. You don't get much work done with a chainsaw that's got all these enviro gizmos that could go wrong at any second, for example. And you don't get paid if your truck breaks, and you can't get to where you HAVE to be.
Unless you're a government guy. "Hey, my USF&G truck broke. I still get paid, BY YOU, bosco." "Hey, my brand-new junk chainsaw's sensors messed up again, it won't start and I can't use it to get work done. I still get paid, BY YOU, bosco."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.