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Why
VET Testing Really Makes Sense For Those Who Support Air Pollution
by
Theresa Fritz Camoriano (7-23-01)
Did
you know that 98% of cars manufactured in the last ten years pass the
vehicle emissions test (VET)? Have
you considered the reality that more pollution is created by driving all
those cars to the VET test sites to be tested than could ever be saved by
catching and correcting the 2% that fail the test?
Of course, if the VET program were about reducing air pollution,
everyone would agree that this whole arrangement makes no sense at all,
and the government would stop testing the vast majority of cars that
almost always pass. However,
the VET program is not about reducing air pollution.
It is about obtaining pollution credits.
Once you understand the real purpose of the VET program, you will
understand why the government wants to test the new, clean cars much more
than it wants to test the older, more polluting models.
As
was explained in George Baumler’s article in last week’s Jefferson
Review, http://www.jeffersonreview.com/articles/
2001/071601/vetrobbing.htm
the
VET program is designed to create pollution credits, which the county can
then sell or give to industry so it can build new factories or expand
existing plants which then create more air pollution while still complying
with EPA guidelines. When you
buy a car with pollution reduction equipment, which all newer cars must
have, you are, at that point, taking the step that actually reduces the
air pollution. Driving your
car through the VET station does nothing to reduce the amount of pollution
produced by your car. However,
it does provide documentation that your car beat the standards by a
certain amount, and that documentation provides the basis for creating
pollution credits. So, the
cleaner your car is, the more pollution credits you are creating, which
will then enable more industry pollution to be created in your area.
As
explained in George Baumler’s article last week, if you owned those
pollution credits that you are creating, you would have the option of
selling them, banking them, or retiring them, as do factories that reduce
their pollution. If you had the power to retire the credits you produce, you
could actually be doing something to clean the environment. Or, if your car were not tested to create the credit in the
first place, that credit would effectively be retired, thereby helping to
maintain cleaner air. However,
when you produce credits by buying a cleaner-burning car and driving it
through the VET, your credits go to the government, not to you.
The government then gives or sells those credits to someone who
uses them as a license to pollute. So,
the better your car does on the VET, the more pollution you are
authorizing industry to create.
From
the point of view of the government, which is trying to create pollution
credits, there is little interest in testing old cars that don’t meet
the standards, because those old cars don’t create pollution credits.
The government is much more interested in testing new cars that
beat the standards by a substantial margin, because that is how they get
the credits that they can use to help businesses build or expand in their
area.
Once
you understand that the VET program is a program for creating pollution
credits, not a program for cleaning the air, you can understand why the
program is run in a way that would seem nonsensical if the goal were to
reduce pollution from automobiles, as it is usually touted in the media. And,
once you understand the program, you will also understand that the VET is
a mechanism for creating more air pollution, not a mechanism for cleaning
the air. If the VET were
abolished, so those credits for cars that pass the test were not being
created, then those credits would effectively be retired, and industry
could not use them as a license to create more air pollution.
In other words, if you support the Vehicle Emissions Testing
Program, you are supporting dirtier air.
If you support an end to the VET, you are a supporter of cleaner
air. Not exactly what you get
in the 30-second sound bites, is it?
National
Academy of Sciences press release
http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/030907
4460?OpenDocument
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