A Federal Policy to Drive You Insane
Over the past 10 years California has implemented clean-air programs that cut airborne pollutants by as much as 50%, despite a 50% increase in the number of cars and a 65% increase in the number of miles driven. What’s more, the state has managed to establish the nation’s strictest auto-emission standards, and one of the country’s first smog-check systems. So why is it, that after all that experience with cleaning our air, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency thinks it knows best when it comes to implementing a tougher smog-check program?
The answer is: Maybe they haven’t asked enough questions yet.
To meet stricter standards under the Clean Air Act of 1990, the EPA is promoting an enhanced emissions-monitoring program that would include centralized testing sites in metropolitan areas with the worst air-pollution problems.
In California enhanced testing would take place at only about 200 facilities covering the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Orange County metropolitan area, Oxnard-Ventura-Thousand Oaks, San Diego, San Bernardino-Riverside, Bakersfield, Fresno and Sacramento. Currently 7,500 testing sites serve these areas.
For state residents accustomed to the convenience of neighborhood testing sites, a new centralized vision of smog testing is a nightmare. So is the prospect of bouncing back and forth between separate testing and repair sites--an impractical EPA idea.
Let’s face it, with approximately 10 million cars (more than any other state) California needs a touch more flexibility than, say, Rhode Island.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
