Free Republic

Some street snitches are raking in close to $1 million apiece from the city just by recording videos of idling trucks and buses spewing air pollution, prompting local pols to try to curb the staggering payouts. “The days of the six-figure bounty hunters are over,” Queens City Councilman James Gennaro, who chairs the Environmental Committee, told The Post. “We’re not doing that anymore,” he said. “The program has become an occupation. The program was not intended to be an occupation.” The Big Apple’s Citizen Idling Complaint Program was launched in 2019, with the city even recruiting ’80s punk rocker Billy...

Dropping a dime on trucks and buses that keep their engines running while parked is paying big bucks to some New Yorkers. The number of summonses issued for violating the city’s anti-idling law skyrocketed to 1,038 last year — up from just 24 in 2017 — following the creation of a reward program for ratting out offenders, The Post has learned. Meanwhile, the city Department of Environmental Protection has handed out nearly $20,000 to 13 whistleblowers who each got a 25 percent share of the fines generated by their tips, according to official data. Leading the list is lawyer David...

MINNEAPOLIS -- A new ordinance in Minneapolis limits vehicle idling at three minutes. Mayor R.T. Rybak says the idea is to reduce air pollution. City Council member Sandy Colvin Roy says cars don't need more than one minute to warm up, even in the winter. The ordinance limits most vehicles idling to three minutes, except in traffic.

JERICHO, Vt. (AP) - Vermont Governor Jim Douglas has signed into law a bill to ban school buses from idling while parked on school grounds. The governor signed the bill yesterday at the Browns River Middle School in Jericho where a seventh grade social studies class conceived of the idea to ban idling as a way to save fuel and protect the environment. Douglas thanked the students for focusing on reducing emissions from motor vehicles, which generate almost half of the greenhouse gases produced in Vermont. In addition to banning idling, the new law asks the Department of Education to...

When Assembly Bill 2650 was introduced by Assemblyman Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, two years ago, we supported the measure, which limits truck idling at port terminal gates to 30 minutes. The Los Angeles Basin has the worst air in the country, and the twins ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles are the single biggest contributors of diesel emissions to that toxic soup. Anything that would decrease that witches brew would help, or so we thought. Now, more than a year after the law went into effect, we have some doubts about its effects on pollution. Here's why: — The...