You don't have to be an opponent of emissions testing to wonder about the implementation of Hamilton County's vehicle emissions testing program.

If you have doubts about the structure of the testing program and have a few idle hours to spend at your computer, you could add to your perspective by visiting the web sites of the states that have emissions testing and examining their testing procedures.

You would find that Hamilton County's vehicle emissions testing program is one of the nation's strictest in terms of vehicle eligibility and testing frequency.

Here's what I found:
- of the states with emissions programs, a majority test every two years instead of every year
- most states exempt new cars from testing for a number of years (California, home of smoggy Los Angeles, exempts new cars for six years!)
- diesel vehicles are exempt in about half the states, including Georgia. A few states only test diesel vehicles once per owner.

There is a fair amount of variety in these programs, which as far as I can tell has as much to do with local whim as with pollution science.

New Mexico, for instance, tests every two years for 1986 and newer model years and every year for 1975-1985 model years.

Louisiana's oddball program gives an OBD test every two years but drags you back during off years for a gas cap and anti-tampering check.

Alaska issues a seasonal waiver to owners who do not drive their cars from November through March.

Pennsylvania exempts cars driven less than 5,000 miles during the preceding 12-month period.

In short, Hamilton County probably had a range of implementation options but for some reason picked the most intrusive one - every year, every car, no exceptions.

Note: I'm excluding such marginal exemptions as antique cars and motorcycles which few people use in everyday driving.

Hamilton County even tests new cars, which is a complete waste of time because they are the cleanest-running cars on the road.

I was unable to find any literature to explain how these choices were made. I did, however, find a suggestive article from the April 4, 2005 edition of The Herald Online from Charlotte, South Carolina which said that the program beginning in the Chattanooga area was the smallest in the nation.

Is this why we are testing new cars? So that we have enough cars to test?

According to news reports of last week's County Commission hearing on the issue, a TDEC official all but admitted that new cars don't really need to be tested. The reason given was that new cars were included to enlarge the pool of eligible vehicles so that fees can be kept low.

Is this low-fee rationale an after-the-fact spin? Or did the testing pool have to be made as large as possible in order to generate enough traffic to make it worthwhile for Envirotest to come here?

If so, I would not fault Envirotest for wanting assurances that it would get a return on its investment.

But that would be small comfort for those of us who have to submit to the intrusion of a test given more often than is necessary.

Well, at least Hamilton County's $10 testing fee is one of the lowest in the nation, right? Not really. This is a somewhat disingenuous claim.

The $10 fee is certainly less than, say, Connecticut's $20 fee, but since Connecticut tests every other year, the two fees are effectively equal. Kentucky's fee is also $20 every other year.

Only a few programs, like Nevada, charge significantly more than Hamilton County. Nevada charges from $27 to $33 annually.

On the other hand, New Jersey charges nothing for a test at a state facility. Neither does Delaware or Indiana.

Further complicating fee comparisons is the fact that some states have safety inspections in addition to emissions inspections. Some states combine the two. Texas has a statewide safety inspection, with a separate emissions inspection in certain counties, but the gas cap and emissions component inspection is done at the safety test instead of the emissions test. Got that?

Comparing fees is an apples v. oranges affair. A simple comparison is not possible because there are too many quirks and variations among the programs.

In my opinion fees are a non-issue. The program itself is the real burden. This is especially true if you have to pay to bring a failed vehicle into compliance.

Here's what I'd like to see: the conditions needed for the county to be able to end emissions testing, spelled out in plain English, available online for all to see. Give us the numbers, and put a box on the Air Pollution Control Board or the Hamilton County website so that we can track our progress. Then we would know that the purpose of testing is to fix a specific problem and not to perpetuate yet another impossible to kill government program.

The state and local agencies responsible for the emissions testing program met with the media in April to trumpet the success of their year-old program. I saw no mention of the soaring gas prices of 2005, which surely were responsible for at least part of the stated drop in emission pollution. I don't know about you, but I've certainly cut back on my family's driving, and driving less means creating fewer emissions.

The goal of a vehicle emissions testing program should be to achieve a maximum amount of pollution reduction with a minimum amount of fuss. Hamilton County's program seems heavy-handed.

Most states test every two years and give exemptions for new vehicles. Why doesn't ours?

Michael Locke
malocke@bellsouth.net

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Michael Locke makes some great points regarding the vehicle emissions
inspection program. I commend him for doing his research and discovering
some facts that I didn't know myself. There are many such testing
programs around the country, and ours is one of the most oppressive in
terms of the frequency and the large pool of vehicles, including newer
ones, that must be tested.

It's funny (not ha-ha, but strange) how we test all cars (except brand
new ones and antiques built before 1975), but we don't test any large
buses or trucks over 10,500 pounds, even though they pollute far more
than a car or light truck. That hardly seems fair to me.

And of course we don't test the thousands of cars and trucks driven into Hamilton County every day by commuters from other counties in Tennessee, Northeast Alabama and Northwest Georgia, not to mention tourists and truckers coming through on the interstates.

Mr. Locke wants some answers as to why we can't modify our testing
program to be less of a burden, and when we can eliminate it. The best
way to lessen the burden is to junk the program completely, and we can
do that any time five county commissioners muster up the guts to admit they were wrong.

If you live in District 2, vote for me, Joe Dumas, "the Taxpayer's Best
Friend" on Aug. 3 and I will work to put together the five votes needed to set us free from this inconvenient, intrusive, unfair and ineffective program.

Joe Dumas
County Commission Candidate
joe@joedumas.com

* * *

I moved back to Chattanooga a little over a year ago. I was saddened to learn that my original hometown people had been duped the same way that people had been duped where I moved from. I had lived a few years in Louisville, Ky., where the metropolitan population is about one million. Their emissions testing program, which started about five or six years ago, consisted of an $11 charge per year but was much more stringent by virtue of a chassis dynamometer test at various loads and speeds instead of the idle test here in Chattanooga. There were periodic incidents of damage to engines and drive trains. There were more repairs required due to the more stringent test method. The bureaucratic response to these hardships was about the same as here in Chattanooga which was and is "sorry about your luck." There was never any response to the question of how about the additional auto emissions due to the fuel burned traveling to, during and from the test station. (Note: gasoline engines emit about 90 pounds of gases per gallon of fuel burned). There was never a response to the question about emissions from trucks, buses or out of county commuters. The burden on the silent majority continued until pressure was brought upon the elected officials to abolish the program.

All the threats of halting federal funding of whatever in the event of no auto emissions testing program, seemed to disappear. The statistical data on local air quality did not indicate any significant change after abolishing the testing. But the will of the majority of the people finally prevailed over the handful of loudmouth doomsday fanatics.

Hopefully, Hamilton County residents will have the fight in them that is necessary to get rid of or enlighten the weak officials that allowed the useless testing/taxation of auto emissions.

Gary Catlett
gcatlett@astecinc.com