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VET Just Will Not Go Away

by George Baumler

     The VET (Vehicle Emissions Testing) program will not just go away or undergo any serious scrutiny if Okolona Representative Democrat Larry Clark and others of like mind have their way.  Senate Bill 48, legislation to end the intrusive vehicle inspections, has an uphill battle in the Kentucky House.  Dismissed as a partisan issue by detractors, the bill will not receive serious consideration, and Democrat Governor Patton has publicly promised to veto the bill even if it does somehow pass both legislative houses.  Exactly where that leaves the nearly half million folks who undergo the tests annually, for questionable benefit to air quality, is anyone’s guess.

The mantra of “cleaning the air so our children can breathe” gave way to “the federal government will cut off our road money” at the Senate committee hearing.  Even VET defenders say that the real harm in ending the program is not air quality but the loss of federal money or the burden that will be shifted from motorists to businesses.  No one except the uninformed believes that the VET actually cleans any air at all.  The program seems well entrenched, and, with federal extortion backing it up, it isn’t likely to go away any time in the foreseeable future.

One odd quirk of the VET debate is the obvious role reversal of the political parties in Kentucky.  The normally liberal Democrats are defending the VET program as an aid to “Big Business”, while the Kentucky Republicans are in the position of defending the rights of the beleaguered “little man” against the VET monopoly.  Once the exclusive issue of Libertarians, personal liberty is belatedly gaining popularity at least on this issue.  Perhaps the doomsayers are right “The end is near”.