Posted on 04/19/2002 1:55:25 PM PDT by hsmomx3
Lawmakers are willing to give motorcycles a pass from the state's mandatory emissions test if they're proven not to foul up the air.
But state records show that 26 percent of the motorcycles taking the test in 2000 failed while cars flunked at the rate of 16 percent.
Motorcyclists and state Rep. Dean Cooley, R-Mesa, argue that those figures come from an idle test that is not a good gauge of motorcycle performance, which is why they want a separate study on the issue.
Years ago, lawmakers exempted cars from the emissions test in the first five years of operation, reasoning that new cars emit little pollution. But they continued to collect the emissions fee, now $25, with the money feeding a clean-air fund. Motorcycles would not be saddled with the same obligation under House Bill 2501.
"They would be totally exempted," said Cooley, the bill's sponsor. The exemption also could extend to collectible vehicles.
Cooley's bill requires the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality to study how much air pollution motorcycles and collectible vehicles contribute. If the finding is negligible, the bill directs the state to request an exemption for those vehicles from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA oversees state pollution plans.
Cooley said he has no intent of requiring motorcycle owners to pay the emissions fee if they're exempt from the emissions test.
If his bill, which passed a Senate committee Thursday, becomes law, legislators could be in a position of having decided that three classes of vehicles - cars built in the past five years, motorcycles and collectible cars - are not polluting the air and therefore don't have to go through the emissions test. But only one class, newer cars, would still have to pay a fee to the state.
That fee is the subject of another bill, House Bill 2560, which was also approved Thursday by the Senate Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Committee.
That bill would take the emissions fee from exempt cars and apply it to a variety of clean-air programs, ranging from conversion programs for diesel vehicles to repair and retrofit of older vehicles that fail the emissions test to programs that monitor visible air pollution, such as the Valley's Brown Cloud.
Previously, the fee funded the state's alternative-fuel conversion program. After the alt-fuels program dissolved in scandal 18 months ago, lawmakers cut off the program and repealed the fee, effective July 1, 2003.
"This bill gives us a chance to rethink the wisdom of that decision," said Rep. Deb Gullett, R-Phoenix, the sponsor of HB 2560.
Gullett argues that the fee from exempt vehicles could be put to work cutting other forms of air pollution, which is still technically rated at serious levels in the Phoenix metropolitan area for ozone, particulate matter and carbon monoxide.
Sen. Tom Smith, R-Phoenix, voted for Gullett's bill but questioned why the state would require a fee for the privilege of not going to the emissions test.
"Why in the world do you have to pay the money for a problem you're not part of?" he asked.
Neither Gullett nor Smith was in the Legislature in 1989 when the fee was created. Lawmakers decided to exempt cars from the emissions test in the first five years after their manufacture, reasoning that they create little pollution. But they opted to continue collecting the fee to subsidize alt-fuel conversion programs.
The motorcycle exemption is backed by a variety of motorcycle clubs. Bobbi Hartman, a lobbyist for a motorcycle-education club, said motorcycles are only a small fraction of the vehicle fleet. Besides, the state's emissions test isn't designed to properly test motorcycles, she said in comments after the hearing.
Gullett-Isn't she a big McCain supporter?
What decision? The decision to stop collecting a tax -- oops -- sorry, a fee, of course.
How stupid of our legislators to think they could do without some of our money...
Hmm. So, the state lets itself off the hook to upgrade/modify it's tests, but gets to collect the money anyway. Sweet.
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