Cleaner Cars, Cleaner Air

Motor vehicles generate half of the air pollution in California. But in other states, this problem, once seen as California’s alone, is also becoming a matter of serious concern. Even Maine’s Acadia National Park, 350 miles north of New York City, has days when air quality falls below federal clean air standards. So the Environmental Protection Agency’s announcement last week of new, tougher vehicle emission inspection requirements in Los Angeles and scores of other cities is welcome news.

The proposed new standards, if approved by the agency as expected, will help cut by 28% the pollutants that cause smog. The new rules, which will not take effect until 1994, implement a provision of the 1990 Clean Air Act. They will require the most polluted metropolitan areas to install “enhanced” auto inspection and maintenance programs, subjecting each car to more sophisticated testing than is currently done. As a result, the EPA expects millions of poorly maintained cars that now pass inspection to fail. In California, “enhanced” testing will be conducted in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Orange County metropolitan region, the Oxnard-Ventura-Thousand Oaks area, San Diego, San Bernardino-Riverside, Bakersfield, Fresno and Sacramento. Thirty percent of California cars that now pass will probably fail the new inspections, according to projections.

In dozens of other communities nationwide with less severe air pollution, the new rules will require implementation of a basic inspection program where none had been required before. Altogether, 177 urban areas in 38 states will be effected. The Bush Administration, which takes credit for the rules, was required by the 1990 act to issue these and other rules in some cases more than a year ago. Action came last week following a court order.

The rules, while welcome, put new burdens on vehicle owners. In cities ordered to install “enhanced” testing, inspection stations must buy more sophisticated and costly test equipment and motorists will have to pay up to $450 for emissions repairs, instead of the current $50 to 350, depending on vehicle model. But real improvement in air pollution--as well as compliance with the Clean Air Act--calls for improvement from industry too. The new emissions rules come just two weeks after the Administration relaxed the standards for 34,000 manufacturing, refining and chemical plants that emit the same pollutants as cars and trucks. Moreover, the EPA has yet to issue rules, which were required by last November, ordering bus manufacturers to build cleaner-burning engines. Fairness dictates that the burden of cleaning up our nation’s dirty air be more equitably shared.