They take our money in taxes, then make laws that you have to follow if you want to get at least some of that money back...
That is the Clean Air Act - violate the standards and federal highway funds (ahem, tax dollars forced to be paid by the feds) all of a sudden have strings attached.
Way too many years of letting Congress make people feel like they are getting a favor by getting some of their money back. Actually absurd if you think about it.
On the "bright" side - maybe more crap like this will make the average Joe understand that when blaming the factory (which just happens to gainfully employ 2000+ people) runs out of mileage (either shut down or having spent 10's of millions on controls, or having to layoff people to stay profitable, or move the jobs oversees, or...) the current system will go after them and things they want.
All I can say is have fun idling in a traffic jam since the EPA won't let you fix it - that should improve air quality...
Oh, that's right, the dust storms were caused by Global Warming™ from our evil carbon emissions...