Commission Makes Right Move on Emission Testing

Last Thursday, the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission voted to reject a proposal that would have exempted more cars from tailpipe testing. The proposal, which has been driven by politics and would actually worsen ozone pollution in the Denver metro area, would have allowed new cars to avoid tailpipe testing for up to eight years. Thankfully it was rejected.

At the same time, the Air Quality Control Commision moved forward with a proposal to implement more remote testing of tailpipes and to phase out traditional emission testing. Remote sensing, which tests vehicle emissions as they drive by a testing van, came under fire earlier this week by a legislative audit. Despite the audit, the Commission charged the Air Pollution Control Divsion with devising a credible and effective remote sensing program to test tailpipe emissions by the end of 2007.

Current tailpipe testing has been called burdensome, inconvenient, inaccurate, and too costly. This may very well be the case. But right now, it's clearly the most effective means of controlling ozone forming pollution from vehicles. Sure, emission testing can and should be improved, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Vehicle emissions are a major source of ozone forming emissions
and contribute to Denver's foul brown cloud.

With Denver on the verge of violating federal health standards for ozone, the state needs to move carefully to implement new emission tsting programs, as an article in today's Rocky Mountain News reports. Perhaps remote sensing can be improved to overcome the downfalls reported by the recent legislative audit. Perhaps not. The state needs to look hard before it leaps on this one, we can ill-afford to suffer the consequences of unhealthy air pollution.