Ranting about emissions testing

[Jay Mackro <jmackro@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 11:47 PM 11/10/98 -0500, David R Johnson wrote:
> I do wonder... what you have to do to
>register a car bought in an emissions-challenged state?  I assume this can be
>done, since to prohibit it seems a violation of freedom, but what does it take?

Real simple - you pay a higher fee to register your car.  There is some
added amount - I believe it's about $300 - that supposedly goes to abate
the additional pollution that your non-Calif. vehicle is going to emit.
Now, how the State actually uses that $300 (or whatever) to chean up
your car's pollution is beyond me - maybe they hire someone with a net
to follow your car, and catch all the bad things coming out of the 
tailpipe.  Then they mail it back to New Jersey, or wherever your
car was originally sold. 

And, Gregory Scott wrote:
>Subject: Emissions
>
>The EPA exists to make money.....
>So here is some solid advice for you folks out there who want to
>make some large amounts of money-- start building emissions testing
>machines.  You will be filthy rich in no time.

Not that any Alfa-digest readers would actually stoop to do something
so low, but, this isn't strictly correct.  If you want to get filthy
rich from the emissions racket, it would be FAR better to be politicly
well-connected, and just license emissions testing technology from 
some dumb engineer.  Heck, the quality of the emissions testing
equipment is totally irrelevant - all it needs to do is to make sure
that > X% and < Y% of the vehicles fail - enough to placate the greens,
and not too many to cause civil unrest among the voters.  There could
be squirels running around a wheel inside the thing, but as long as
your consortium is well-placed in Sacramento, the mortgage on your
mansion in Brentwood will get paid.

The sad thing is that the vast majority of the voters actually believe 
that this sh*t actually cleans the air!  Anyone with a rudimentary 
knowledge of economics would grasp that:

 - Newer cars are vastly cleaner than older cars, given Federal
emissions specifications.
 - Additional fees and testing charges are paid by consumers
from the same funds that would otherwise be available to buy new 
vehicles, or better maintain their old ones.
 - As the State increases the charge for "emissions" they
decrease the amount of money that consumers have to spend on
new cars.   
 - So, consumers have to keep their old, polluting cars on the road  
longer, in order to pay for legally-mandated emissions testing.
 - This is all simply a revenue transfer scheme, taking money that
would otherwise go to Detroit (or Tokyo or Milan) and sending it to 
Sacramento.

Jay Mackro
no longer living in California

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