EPA Proposes Stricter Smog Rules for Vehicles : Pollution: New standards for testing will apply to Los Angeles drivers and could lead to higher repair bills.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday proposed tough new vehicle emission inspections and maintenance requirements in Los Angeles and scores of other cities plagued by dirty air, calling for a 28% reduction in the pollutants that create smog.

The new standards implement a mandate of the 1990 Clean Air Act. They will require the most polluted metropolitan areas to use new high-tech testing equipment and confront owners of cars and light trucks with far higher repair bills. The proposal extends emission testing to 55 more cities.

Agency officials touted the new standards, scheduled to take effect July, 1994, as a significant weapon against the staggering problem of vehicle emissions.

EPA Administrator William K. Reilly called the stiffened inspection requirements “the single greatest air-pollution reduction measure we know of.” William G. Rosenberg, assistant administrator for air and radiation, told reporters that the tougher inspection and maintenance program is “the closest thing we have to a silver bullet” to combat smog.

Nationwide, the number of cities required to operate inspection programs will increase to 177 from the current 122. Urban areas in 38 states will be affected.

Under the revised Clean Air Act, cities with moderate air pollution problems must carry out a basic inspection and maintenance program, and those with severe problems must implement an “enhanced” program using more sophisticated equipment.

The upgraded program will include a four-minute test using a treadmill-type device called a dynamometer. Rather than testing tailpipe emissions with the engine idling, the dynamometer will put vehicles through acceleration, deceleration and stopping sequences that simulate real driving conditions.

The new equipment to be employed in high-tech inspections also will measure the evaporation of volatile organic compounds from engine compartments and gasoline tanks. The EPA estimated that emissions of these compounds, the primary contributors to smog formation, will fall by 28% as a result of the new standards. In addition, the agency projected that carbon monoxide emissions will be reduced by 31% and nitrogen oxides by 9%.

California will be required to conduct the enhanced inspections in the Los Angeles-Long Beach metropolitan area, Oxnard-Ventura-Thousand Oaks, San Bernardino-Riverside, San Diego, Bakersfield, Fresno and Sacramento.

Installation of the necessary equipment is expected to cost each inspection station from $75,000 to as much as $150,000.

The Department of Transportation said that states will be eligible for federal funds to help acquire the equipment and train technicians. The aid will come through a $6-billion program approved by Congress last year.

While the standards are expected to reduce overall outlays for pollution abatement, they could prove costly to owners of failing vehicles.

Under existing requirements, programs in some states impose a $50 ceiling on repair costs for a vehicle that fails its first inspection. Under the new regulations, the cap on owner expenditures will be raised to $450.

(In California, the current repair ceiling varies from $50 to $350, depending on the vehicle model.)

Reilly, however, argued that the same repairs needed to reduce a vehicle’s emissions will improve its fuel economy, offsetting most of the additional repair cost.

He said that the average vehicle on the road emits three to four times the amount of pollutants allowed under the tailpipe standards.

In California, EPA officials estimate that 30% of the vehicles that pass their biennial inspections actually should fail. Critics blame the problem on the state’s decentralized inspection system, which authorizes inspections in service stations and garages that also provide maintenance. That system, the critics charge, sets up a basic conflict of interest.

The alternative to privately owned inspection stations is large, state-run inspection facilities that would not be as concerned about the possibility of offending customers. About a third of the states have central inspection systems.

The debate over the two approaches raged for months as the new standards, initially due last November, were being hammered out.

Critics charge that the Bush Administration ultimately bowed to pressure by allowing states to continue with decentralized systems. Chester Davenport, president of Envirotest Systems Corp., a Maryland firm that has contracts to conduct emission testing for several states, said that the most conspicuous lobbying for continuing the decentralized arrangement was by Arco.

EPA’s Rosenberg acknowledged that the huge oil companies and the Service Station Dealers Assn. argued heavily against proposals to move inspections into central facilities.

While states will be permitted to continue to allow emission inspections at service stations, they must demonstrate that the programs are working satisfactorily. In addition, they must have statutes in place to establish central inspection systems if the decentralized systems do not continue to meet standards.

To determine whether the decentralized systems are working, the EPA will conduct random tests of vehicles in the states. About 35,000 tests a year will be required in the Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties region under the new rules, as compared with about 1,000 currently conducted annually, said Steve Gould, an analyst for the Bureau of Automotive repair, which runs California’s smog check program.

A statewide review committee, which includes air pollution control representatives, is expected to issue specific recommendations for the California program in the fall. Any revisions probably will take effect in 1994, said Bill Sessa, spokesman for the state Air Resources Board. But the final decision rests with the state Legislature.

Times staff writer Judy Pasternak contributed to this story from Los Angeles.