White House pardons diesel mechanic imprisoned for ‘deleting’ emissions controls on hundreds of commercial trucks
The White House has pardoned a diesel mechanic and business owner who was serving time for Clean Air Act violations.
On November 7, 2025, Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis announced that mechanic Troy Lake Sr. had been pardoned by President Donald Trump.
Calling Troy Lake tonight to tell him he’d been pardoned by President Trump was a joyous moment. I'm grateful to @POTUS for standing up for those wronged by the Biden admin’s weaponization against working Americans.
To Troy & Holly, may God bless you! pic.twitter.com/lqLuC0YjIY
— Senator Cynthia Lummis (@SenLummis) November 8, 2025
Troy Lake was politically targeted by the Biden administration, all for keeping essential vehicles up & running in the Cheyenne community, even during the harshest Wyoming winter months.
— Senator Cynthia Lummis (@SenLummis) November 8, 2025
Thank you @POTUS for pardoning Troy and fighting for working Americans. My statement below. pic.twitter.com/Uf5zQbH3Xd
In December 2024, Lake and his Colorado company Elite Diesel Service Inc. were sentenced after pleading guilty to conspiring to violate the Clean Air Act. Lake was sentenced to 12 months and 1 day in custody and a fine of $2,500. Elite was sentenced to a five-year term of probation and ordered to pay a fine of $37,500.
From the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado:
“According to the plea agreements, between approximately January 2017 through December 2020, Elite and Lake instructed Elite employees to disable the computerized on-board diagnostic (OBD) systems on at least 344 heavy-duty commercial trucks. OBDs are required under the Clean Air Act to monitor emissions control hardware on vehicles to ensure that they are functioning properly. Elite’s co-conspirators, companies that operated diesel truck garages or diesel truck fleets, had disabled the emissions control hardware on these trucks and hired Elite and Lake to manipulate the OBDs so that the OBDs would not detect the malfunctions. This violated the Clean Air Act’s prohibition against tampering with monitoring devices.”
Eight co-conspirators located in seven different states were also sentenced for their role in the emissions control tampering scheme.
Lummis has championed Lake’s cause and even recently introduced a bill called the “Diesel Truck Liberation Act” in his honor. The bill seeks to protect individuals from prosecution for removing or altering emissions control devices in diesel trucks, a practice often referred to as a “tune” or a “delete.”
“The Biden EPA threw Troy Lake and other mechanics in prison for keeping school buses, fire trucks, and ambulances running in cold, harsh climates,” said Lummis. “When Washington bureaucrats can make you a criminal without Congress ever voting on it, we have a huge problem. I want this overreach to end. Democrats weaponized the EPA to wage war on rural America, and we cannot let that happen again. This legislation is the first step toward justice and sanity.”