Lawsuit against Volker Wissing for release of exhaust gas measurements

The German Environmental Aid has sued Transport Minister Volker Wissing. The reason: The Transport Ministry is refusing to publish existing exhaust gas measurements on the controversial fuel HVO100 to publish.

The German Environmental Aid (DUH) has filed a lawsuit against the Ministry of Transport before the Berlin Administrative Court. This is according to an official statement from the association. According to this, Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) is refusing to publish exhaust gas measurements for the controversial fuel HVO100.

HVO100: Is Volker Wissing involved in a lobby campaign?

The DUH even accuses Minister Wissing and his State Secretary Oliver Luksic of being involved in a lobbying campaign by the oil industry. The Ministry of Transport is promoting the HVO100 fuel as “particularly sustainable and high-quality” and claiming that it burns more cleanly and with less odor than conventional diesel.

However, the German Environmental Aid had already informed the ministry in June 2024 about “significantly increased nitrogen oxide emissions from certain diesel vehicles”. DUH Federal Managing Director Jürgen Resch commented:

Over 23,000 people in Germany die prematurely every year just because of the high levels of nitrogen dioxide in the air we breathe. Instead of fake solutions like HVO100, we need a real and honest solution to the technical retrofitting of the approximately eight million diesel vehicles with illegal switch-off devices and extremely high nitrogen oxide emissions that the Federal Ministry of Transport has been hindering in Germany for nine years.

Volker Wissing must therefore stop “promoting HVO100 with false claims and instead increase his commitment to the short-term implementation of truly clean air in our cities by decommissioning or retrofitting dirty diesel vehicles,” said Resch.

Ministry of Transport refuses to publish measurements

According to its own statements, the DUH had previously requested “the handover of the measurement values ​​of diesel cars and commercial vehicles using HVO100 that were available to the Ministry of Transport”. However, the ministry refused. Deutsche Umwelthilfe then submitted a formal application on June 14, 2024, citing the Environmental Information Act (UIG).

The demand: The Ministry of Transport should submit all relevant documents relating to emissions from the HVO100 fuel within one month. These include: exhaust gas measurements, test protocols with individual values, test reports, study results and expert opinions, correspondence and notes on meetings.

The DUH also sent a similar request to the Federal Motor Transport Authority. Since the request was not met even after the grace period had expired, the German Environmental Aid has now filed a lawsuit. DUH Federal Managing Director Jürgen Resch said:

The scandalous collaboration between Transport Minister Wissing and his State Secretary Luksic with the oil industry's lobby campaign for HVO100, which was exposed head-on by Lobbycontrol and ZDF, increases our curiosity about the measurement results and test reports refused by the ministry.

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