Smog checks relaxed for oldest, newest cars

By Ken Leiser
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

SACRAMENTO - Tuning up the embattled Smog Check II program, Gov. Pete Wilson signed bills yesterday that relax testing for the oldest and newest cars and help low-income drivers pay hefty repair bills.

   Final approval of the four-bill package effectively ends a 1 1/2 year fight over the tough emissions testing program that's supposed to remove 112 tons of pollutants each day from skies of the state's smoggiest areas.

   "Air pollution is one of the most important health and quality of  life issues we face in the state," Wilson said. "These new laws will make it easier for motorists to comply, With tougher pollution standards."

   But Wilson vetoed bills that sought to remove four small cities from the toughest rules of Smog' Check II and force emission reductions from oil refineries and manufacturing plants if state clean-air goals aren't met.

   One of the biggest changes is that new cars will be spared from the mandatory emissions tests during their first four years years on the road. The move is expected to save consumers $300 million through the year 2002. The tests are generally required every other year: "

   Instead, new car owners will pay a flat $4 fee when they purchase a car and a $4 annual fee for the first four years that will be used to assist low-income drivers with smog repairs.

   Wilson and supporters of  AB 1492 insist that more than 99 percent of cars pass the emissions tests during that period, thanks largely to modern emission control systems and improved fuel efficiency. 

   The bill forces the state Bureau of Automotive Repair to design a new vehicle inspection program by the year 2005.

   Despite promises that there will be no significant loss in smog-fighting benefits, environmentalists say they're not so sure. One of the bills, for instance, would exempt cars built before 1974 from testing. The previous exemption applied to cars built up to 1966.

   The state Air Resources Board predicted yesterday that the state will fall 8 percent to 9 percent short of its emission goals by the year 2010, according to spokesman Allan Hirsch.

   "We're not sure what measures the Air Resources Board can come up with that are as certain and long-lasting as the smog check program to replace those reductions," said Bonnie Holmes-Gen, senior lobbyist for the Sierra Club.

   "We will have to replace those losses. We cannot ignore that."

   But Holmes-Gen applauded the two bills that set up a repair-assistance program for low-income motorists. Without it, she said, the poor would ignore the smog tests and drive their cars without re-registering them.

   Beginning March 1, 1998, the measures, AB 57 and AB 208, provide financial assistance for low-income drivers whose cars fail a smog test and require more than $250 in repairs.

   To qualify, a family of four would have to earn $27,000 a year or less and make a $250 co-payment.

   The financial assistance will be funded by the $300 smog impact fees that are charged to out-of- state vehicles when they're registered in California. The balance of the $20 million-a-year program will come from a $4 fees on new cars.

   One of the measures sought by classic car owners, SB 42, would, exempt vehicles built before 1974. By the year 2003, all cars 30 years old or more would be freed from the biennial testing requirements.

   "Classic and older cars are few in number, are driven far fewer miles, and are generally well-maintained," Wilson said.

   The four bills take effect ]an. 1. In a related matter, Wilson signed three bills requiring tighter regulation and a one-year study of the cleaner-burning fuel additive, Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether (MTBE), which has turned up in drinking water supplies.

   Smog Check II was established to weed out and repair the state's worst-polluting cars.

   But it sparked Capitol rallies and ridicule on the talk radio airwaves last summer by critics who said government had gone too far and was ready to confiscate "gross polluting" cars.

   "Smog Check II is the problem," said Sen. Ray Baynes, the Temecula Republican who unsuccessfully tried to gut the program this year. "That (the four bills signed by Wilson) gets rid of the PR nightmares like the old lady who can't drive her car two miles a year to the store and back."

   Baynes prefers random roadside testing to target the worst polluters.

   Assemblywoman Carole Migden of San Francisco, who authored one of the bills Wilson signed yesterday, said all Smog Check II needed was a tuneup.

   "It is fixing a program rather than abolishing it," Migden said. "That is an example of government working at its best."

   The bills also create a one-time waiver on repairs over $450 for owners of the so-called "gross polluters," smog-belching cars that make up 10 percent of the state- wide vehicle fleet but create half the smog from mobile sources.

   Gross polluters, under the new law, would no longer have to be tested every year .