Annual Car Emission Tests, New Controls Recommended

New controls on motor vehicle emissions and annual inspections under California’s mandatory Smog Check program are being recommended by a special task force appointed by the South Coast Air Quality Management District board.

In addition, the air pollution task force is recommending that the 6.5 million cars in the South Coast Air Basin be tested much more thoroughly, a proposal that would require the region’s 3,800 Smog Check stations either to buy expensive new equipment or to get out of the testing business.

The recommendations, scheduled to go before the board in El Monte today, mark the beginning of what is expected to be a long and controversial attempt to dramatically revise the Los Angeles Basin’s air pollution control strategy.

The proposals to impose new controls on auto emissions and more frequent inspections, if approved by the Air Quality Management District Board, still would require action by the State Air Resources Board and the Legislature.

“It’s the beginning of the next era to clean up the air in the basin,” said Larry L. Berg, a board member who chaired the task force.

The new effort is expected to be controversial because the proposed pollution control strategies would be far more expensive than in the past and would affect some industries, such as oil refineries, that have been largely exempt from controls.

At the heart of the recommendations are new findings that an array of air pollution problems--from ozone and acid rain to poor visibility and health-threatening airborne particulates--can be reduced by controlling a key ingredient of smog that, until now, has been all but ignored. That ingredient, oxides of nitrogen, or NOx, is produced when fossil fuels like gasoline and oil are burned. One rationale for largely ignoring NOx has been the assumption that a byproduct of oxides of nitrogen actually breaks down smog at first. Later, however, it contributes to the problem.

Thus, until recently, much of the air quality district’s effort has gone into controlling hydrocarbons--mostly vapors from unburned fuel, paints and solvents--that join with oxides of nitrogen in the presence of sunlight to produce smog.

The new findings also include a state Air Resources Board study that found that the most dramatic basin-wide decreases in ozone occurred when there were simultaneous controls on both hydrocarbons and NOx.

The task force is expected to urge the air quality board today to support the adoption by the state Air Resources Board of tougher NOx emission standards on new cars and to double the warrantees on vehicle pollution control systems to 100,000 miles.

The board is also expected in the next few months to consider tightening NOx emission requirements on new cars from .7 grams per mile to .4 grams per mile.

The task force is also urging the board to instruct its staff to develop detailed recommendations by March for a major overhaul of the mandatory Smog Check vehicle inspection and maintenance program.

“I’m convinced, on the basis of what I’ve seen, that we need to go substantially further than we are now,” Berg said.

The task force will also urge the board to consider additional NOx controls on polluting industries beyond measures imposed recently, most of which will not begin to reduce NOx emissions for two to seven years. Oil refineries have until mid-1988 and glass manufacturers have until 1993 to reduce emissions.

For now, however, any immediate steps the air quality board takes are expected to focus on motor vehicles, which account for two-thirds of NOx emissions in the South Coast Air Basin.

Among the changes proposed is annual Smog Check inspections. Currently, inspections are required every other year. Such a change would require approval of the California Legislature.

The remaining task force recommendations, however, could be mandated by the air quality board itself. Among them is a proposal to change the way cars are tested, a change that the state Bureau of Automotive Repairs said would require existing Smog Check stations to spend between $35,000 and $65,000 to buy dynamometers and computerized analyzers to test for NOx emissions. This, in turn, could result in increased costs to motorists.

Currently, the only Smog Check procedure for controlling NOx emissions is a simple under-the-hood inspection while the engine idles. The exhaust gas recycling valve is checked to make sure it is functioning. The engine timing is also checked. Such inspections usually cost between $15 and $20.

Testing at Tailpipe

Under the task force proposal, cars would be put on a dynamometer and tested at various driving speeds. One advantage of such testing is that emissions of NOx can be measured at the tailpipe; a reading of high NOx emissions, for instance, would indicate that the catalytic converter--a key pollution control device on cars--may not be working.

Berg conceded that he does not expect adoption of the proposed changes without a fight from industries that would be affected. “I assume there will be (substantial) opposition,” he said during an interview.

The proposal to require dynamometers would force between 75% and 85% of the Smog Check stations out of business, according to Jack Heyler, chairman of the government affairs committee of the California Automotive Service Councils, a trade association representing between 1,700 and 1,800 independent California garages and repair shops.

Heyler also questioned the need to test catalytic converters because, he said, field tests indicate that they are holding up well. “Our experience is that a high percentage will last the life of the car when they’re not subject to consumer abuse,” he said.

Heyler further vowed “to fight tooth and nail” any attempt to lengthen new car warrantees on pollution control systems, which he said would drive more business away from independent garages.

Whatever the air quality board ultimately decides on the testing issue, no immediate change is anticipated. In approving the current testing methods two years ago, the district said they would be in place for a minimum of four years.