Hib Halverson
Technical Writer for Internet & Print Media
The environmental jihadists are at it again...trying to force your older Corvette off the road.
Last year, right after the modification of SB708 to eliminate repeal of the 30-year rolling exemption to the Smog Check and that bill's signing by then-Gov. Davis, many people who watch environmental legislation as it applies to car enthusiasts, predicted that the liberal environmentalists who control the California legislature and various administrative bodies, such as the California Air Resources Board, would not give up. They were right!
A recent public meeting held by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) revealed many proposals which will have direct, negative impact on owners of older Corvettes and other enthusiast cars along with vehicles owned by lower income persons. The proposals will focus significant regulatory attention on emissions reductions from older vehicles.
The Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) maintains that such proposals are based upon a flawed computer model, erroneous assumptions and the use of biased data that is unfairly and illogically skewed by the emissions of a small number of vehicles in any model year.
Now...are you sitting down? If not, do that first.
The measures the CARB and the CA legislature want to become law include stricter standards for the Smog Check emissions-testing program. This means that not only will your 60s or early 70s Corvette have to be tested to verify it meets emissions standards, but your car may have to meet a standard more stringent than the one it had to meet when they it manufactured. Also, get ready for a new round of requirements forcing you to install "retrofit devices." Don't know what a "retrofit device" is? Well, remember back in the mid-70s? California tried to force retrofit of emissions devices to older vehicles not originally equipped with them? The program was a failure and it will be a failure again if CARB tries to implement it.
These stricter standards will apply to newer vehicles as well. Expect stricter standards for just about anything older than five model years. CARB wants to do this because it will increase the amount of older vehicles forced off the road without making CARB and the CA legislature address the controversial political issues of mandatory scrappage (ie: confiscation) of vehicles which are not considered by most California voters to be "old cars."
But wait....there's more. CARB wants an expansion of the "enhanced Smog Check" program to include more areas and to new vehicle types, such as diesels and all-wheel drive cars and trucks. It wants annual (versus the, current, every two years) testing of vehicles more than 15 years old (*that means everything older than 1989*). CARB wants the use of roadside remote-sensing devices, vastly expanded vehicle-scrappage programs and last, but certainly not least, our friends at CARB once again want to eliminate the 30-model-year rolling exemption from the Smog Check which is currently allowed for cars built prior to the 1975 model year.
SEMA presented formal comments which described the inherent flaws in these proposals and offered alternatives which would yield real, verifiable and cost-effective emissions reductions without causing unnecessary harm to vehicle hobbyists and low-income motorists.
At this point, it is unknown how SEMA's comments were taken by the CARB. I'm sure we'll hear more about this issue as 2004 goes on, but...mark my words....if even half of these proposals end up as law, some of those owning older Corvettes in California are going to be either be scrapping them, selling them out of state or donating them to museums and any of those choices are the objective of CARB and the environmentalists who control state government. Don't kid yourself, these people hate cars. They believe significant political capital will come the more of these regulations can be put in place. They believe continued and increasing regulation of motor vehicle emissions is easier to accomplish politically than regulation of industrial, utility or other non-vehicular sources of emissions.
Now some might say that the recent election of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will prevent this type of regulation getting very far. I say...don't be too complacent. Schwarzenegger is a fiscal conservative but a social and environmental moderate. He needs a ton of bargaining capital to trade with the liberal-controlled legislature if he wants to further his fiscal agenda. My guess is, those of these proposals which will not cost the state a great deal to put in place will be supported by Schwarzenegger so....if you don't like the idea of this significant change to California exhaust emissions law as it applies to older vehicles, NOW is the time to start writing the CARB, your state legislators and the Governor.
Lastly, those reading this outside California might be saying, "Oh this is just another one of Halverson's right-wing, alarmist posts about the Smog Check." Well...keep in mind that when it comes to motor vehicle emissions regulation which affects car enthusiasts, California sets the pace. Take a look at how many other states now test the emissions of older vehicles in the same manner as does CA? Take a look at how many other states want old cars off the road, as does CA.
Last year, right after the modification of SB708 to eliminate repeal of the 30-year rolling exemption to the Smog Check and that bill's signing by then-Gov. Davis, many people who watch environmental legislation as it applies to car enthusiasts, predicted that the liberal environmentalists who control the California legislature and various administrative bodies, such as the California Air Resources Board, would not give up. They were right!
A recent public meeting held by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) revealed many proposals which will have direct, negative impact on owners of older Corvettes and other enthusiast cars along with vehicles owned by lower income persons. The proposals will focus significant regulatory attention on emissions reductions from older vehicles.
The Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) maintains that such proposals are based upon a flawed computer model, erroneous assumptions and the use of biased data that is unfairly and illogically skewed by the emissions of a small number of vehicles in any model year.
Now...are you sitting down? If not, do that first.
The measures the CARB and the CA legislature want to become law include stricter standards for the Smog Check emissions-testing program. This means that not only will your 60s or early 70s Corvette have to be tested to verify it meets emissions standards, but your car may have to meet a standard more stringent than the one it had to meet when they it manufactured. Also, get ready for a new round of requirements forcing you to install "retrofit devices." Don't know what a "retrofit device" is? Well, remember back in the mid-70s? California tried to force retrofit of emissions devices to older vehicles not originally equipped with them? The program was a failure and it will be a failure again if CARB tries to implement it.
These stricter standards will apply to newer vehicles as well. Expect stricter standards for just about anything older than five model years. CARB wants to do this because it will increase the amount of older vehicles forced off the road without making CARB and the CA legislature address the controversial political issues of mandatory scrappage (ie: confiscation) of vehicles which are not considered by most California voters to be "old cars."
But wait....there's more. CARB wants an expansion of the "enhanced Smog Check" program to include more areas and to new vehicle types, such as diesels and all-wheel drive cars and trucks. It wants annual (versus the, current, every two years) testing of vehicles more than 15 years old (*that means everything older than 1989*). CARB wants the use of roadside remote-sensing devices, vastly expanded vehicle-scrappage programs and last, but certainly not least, our friends at CARB once again want to eliminate the 30-model-year rolling exemption from the Smog Check which is currently allowed for cars built prior to the 1975 model year.
SEMA presented formal comments which described the inherent flaws in these proposals and offered alternatives which would yield real, verifiable and cost-effective emissions reductions without causing unnecessary harm to vehicle hobbyists and low-income motorists.
At this point, it is unknown how SEMA's comments were taken by the CARB. I'm sure we'll hear more about this issue as 2004 goes on, but...mark my words....if even half of these proposals end up as law, some of those owning older Corvettes in California are going to be either be scrapping them, selling them out of state or donating them to museums and any of those choices are the objective of CARB and the environmentalists who control state government. Don't kid yourself, these people hate cars. They believe significant political capital will come the more of these regulations can be put in place. They believe continued and increasing regulation of motor vehicle emissions is easier to accomplish politically than regulation of industrial, utility or other non-vehicular sources of emissions.
Now some might say that the recent election of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will prevent this type of regulation getting very far. I say...don't be too complacent. Schwarzenegger is a fiscal conservative but a social and environmental moderate. He needs a ton of bargaining capital to trade with the liberal-controlled legislature if he wants to further his fiscal agenda. My guess is, those of these proposals which will not cost the state a great deal to put in place will be supported by Schwarzenegger so....if you don't like the idea of this significant change to California exhaust emissions law as it applies to older vehicles, NOW is the time to start writing the CARB, your state legislators and the Governor.
Lastly, those reading this outside California might be saying, "Oh this is just another one of Halverson's right-wing, alarmist posts about the Smog Check." Well...keep in mind that when it comes to motor vehicle emissions regulation which affects car enthusiasts, California sets the pace. Take a look at how many other states now test the emissions of older vehicles in the same manner as does CA? Take a look at how many other states want old cars off the road, as does CA.
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