Just pulled this off the WSJ page:
[Editorial Page]
[Editorial Page]
[Navigation for Front Section] May 9, 1996
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Coming Soon:
A Plan to Confiscate
Your Automobile
By ERIC PETERS
In the not too distant future, owning a second
car, or one that is more than four years old,
may be a legal impossibility--if, that is, a law
recently passed in New Jersey governing
automobile emissions inspections is allowed to
stand, and other states use it as a template for
their own legislation.
The auto emissions law was signed by New
Jersey's Republican governor, Christine Todd
Whitman, last June. It provides for a
centralized emissions inspection regime
explicitly designed to fail most cars more than
four years old, after which they may be denied
registration and ultimately forfeited to the
state.
As extreme as this sounds, it is exactly what
could happen if the emissions law is enforced as
it is written. Here's the story: New Jersey,
like all the other 49 states, is under legal
obligation to comply with the strict air quality
goals set forth in the 1990 federal Clean Air
Act. Washington has been exerting considerable
pressure on the states to meet these standards,
and has threatened those that do not comply with
the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in
federal highway funding..
The target of least resistance has been private
automobile owners, since they individually
possess much less clout in state capitals than
the organized presence of big utility companies,
manufacturers and other industrial polluters.
Garden State officials initially decided to
adopt the so-called Enhanced Inspection and
Maintenance chassis dynamometer test, known as
I/M 240, that is favored by the Environmental
Protection Agency. This would be implemented in
conjunction with roadside monitoring using
infrared sensing equipment and random testing by
police.
Presently, a modified version of I/M 240 known
as Asynchronous Mode Testing is being discussed
as the procedure that would be put into place
beginning later this year or sometime during
1997-98.
I/M 240 and ASM both involve driving a car or
truck on what amounts to a treadmill while an
operator measures emissions levels. These
"enhanced" tests are being pushed hard by an
Arizona-based company, Envirotest, and its
lobbyists in state capitals around the country.
Each new contract for an I/M 240 program means
millions of dollars for Envirotest--and a
government-enforced legal monopoly on all
emissions testing and repair conducted in that
state.
Many older cars are expected to fail the
dynamometer test, perhaps 60%, according to EPA
estimates; 30% according to the director of the
New Jersey Division of Motor Vehicles. The
reason is simply that typically vehicles more
than four years old have minor wear and tear
that slightly increase their emissions beyond
the standard for each car's model year.
The tiny amount of increase attributable to this
incidental wear is of no real consequence to air
quality. Yet under the New Jersey law it would
nevertheless be sufficient cause to deny a
vehicle renewed registration. And since it is
already illegal in most New Jersey counties to
keep an unregistered vehicle on a privately
owned driveway (these are quasipublic areas
under New Jersey law, as in other states), the
state may ticket, impound and even confiscate
your unregistered car or truck--without
compensation.
While the state argues that this is the only way
to combat airborne smog and catch all the
polluters untouched by the present system, what
it really means is that folks who can't afford
$700 in repairs to bring their car back into
compliance won't have the option of parking
their own car in their own driveway until they
can pay the bill.
It also means the owner of an older collectible
or specialty vehicle will see his hobby
effectively criminalized (failure to submit to
the test or keeping an unregistered car on your
property can result in jail time in New Jersey).
His second car could be taken from him by agents
of the state whose agencies, incidentally, share
in any monies recovered as a consequence of the
impoundment or forfeiture of an unregistered
automobile
New Jersey officials argue that historic and
collector cars more than 25 years old will be
granted an exemption, but it is the state
bureaucracy that will define what qualifies as
an historic or collectible car. The emissions
law describes such a "qualified" vehicle as "a
restricted issue make or model [manufactured] in
sufficiently limited quantity . . . [or one]
that is generally recognized" as such.
In other words, a classic Mustang or
Camaro--both of which were produced in the
millions--might not qualify under this
definition and could be subject to confiscation
or scrappage if it could not pass the test. It
all depends on whether you can convince a
harried DMV bureaucrat that your car is
"historic."
But it's not just hobbyists who should be
concerned. By the EPA's own admission, almost no
car more than 10 years old is expected to pass
the dynamometer test. Since the average car on
the road today is at least seven years old, a
lot of drivers are going to find themselves
without their cars in New Jersey should the new
emissions law be enforced to the letter.
The automobile manufacturers are probably
salivating at that prospect, because they stand
to profit enormously if New Jersey's tyrannical
program is adopted by other states. Imagine if
everybody had to buy a new car every three or
four years.
What's happening in New Jersey is frightening
and ominous. And it's not about "air quality" or
anything else so ostensibly reasonable. It's
about getting folks out of their cars, by force
or fraud, and into some other form of
transportation more amenable to control by the
state. Take the new emissions restrictions
seriously. New Jersey's environmentalist
bureaucrats sure do.
-------------------------------------------------
Mr. Peters writes on automotive issues for the
Washington Times, and is an editor on the staff
of its Commentary pages.
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