Jefferson Review

"Your Liberty is Our Interest"

Home/  Archives/ Search /Links / Quotes / Book Reviews/ Advertise /Contact us/ Subscribe /Calendar

Clearing the air on clean air (the VET)

By Guillermo Camoriano

What is the big issue with eliminating the VET (Vehicle Emissions Testing Program)?  Why try to eliminate a program that is supposed to be helping us clean our air?  The answer is simply because the VET is in fact fouling our air instead of cleaning it.  Let me explain why this is so.

When I take my car to be tested, it always passes the test (as 100 % of the 1995 or newer cars tested do).  More importantly, my car passes the test with flying colors!  Of the 220 PPM (Parts Per Million) of hydrocarbons allowed by the EPA for my car, my car tested at 1 PPM under loaded conditions, less than ½ of one percent of the allowable standard.

The Air Pollution Control Board (APCB) takes the difference between what my car actually generated and what is allowed by the EPA standard and states that it is removing this many hydrocarbons from the environment by simply having tested my car. 

Now then, this alone is smoke and magic mirrors, for my car is polluting no more and no less after having been tested than it was before it was tested.  But, hold on, because the best (or worst) is yet to come.  The APCB then takes the cumulative total of hydrocarbons actually being emitted by the vehicles tested and subtracts this figure from the cumulative total allowed by the EPA standards for all those vehicles tested.  The result is a total amount of hydrocarbons which are considered to be removed by the VET program, and these are used to generate air pollution credits which are then used by our very own politicians to allow (in fact to invite and motivate) industry to come into Jefferson County and pollute our air.  Thus, the imaginary pollution “removed” by the VET testing program becomes actual pollution which industry is allowed to use for dumping pollutants into our environment.

The lessons learned:

            - If the VET program is eliminated, we will actually have cleaner air in the county since our local politicians will have no way to substantiate the cleanliness of our vehicle emissions and use this to generate pollution credits for use by industry.

            - Testing every other year or even less frequently will not eliminate this problem.  The less frequent testing could still be used to substantiate this illusory air pollution being removed from our environment.

            - The vehicles are less polluting, not because of the VET testing, but because of the pollution control measures installed by auto manufacturers to comply with federal guidelines.  When we get rid of our old clunker and purchase a newer vehicle with these air pollution control measures (such as catalytic converters), we are paying more money for this.  In essence we are paying for pollution control equipment to reduce the local pollution.  If any air pollution credits are generated by these measures, we should own those credits to do as we please with them (like retire them so no one can come and pollute the air we are trying to clean)

            - Finally, greed is the motivator for humankind.  When a politician tells you they are doing something for the good of the people, of the country, of the children, of the environment, of “you name it”, always follow the money trail.  That will tell you what is the real motivator behind the actions taken.

            The VET is not at all about clean air for our children -- quite the opposite. 

Weather (Louisville)/ Mapquest / White Pages / Business Search/ CNN / Dictionary / E-card / MSN