The Texas emissions war.

• Author: Haurwitz, Ralph K.M.
• Position: Opposition to emissions testing in Texas - Includes related article

PERHAPS THE PROOF THAT THERE'S SOMETHING GOOD ABOUT THE EPA'S EMISSIONS TESTING PROGRAM IS THAT IT'S MADE EVERYBODY UNHAPPY.

When George Bush signed the Clean Air Act amendments into law in December 1990, the occasion was reminiscent in a sense of Richard Nixon's foray into China. In both cases, a conservative Republican president was stepping out boldly in a way that a more liberal president might have found politically impossible.

The clean air amendments focused on three broad issues: acid rain, toxic pollution and urban smog. Acid rain was the most contentious issue during the congressional debate on reauthorizing the law. But the smog program - specifically, vehicle emissions inspection and maintenance has become the main lightning rod for criticism of the Clean Air Act as the Bush and then the Clinton administrations carried out the law's sweeping requirements.

One of the most outspoken critics has been George W. Bush, son of the former president and governor of Texas, the nation's second largest state in both land mass and population. The Lone Star State's relationship with the emissions program - first love, then hate - crystallized the national debate, but with the added irony of the offspring of a president railing against a program set in motion by his father.

CONDEMNING THE EPA

Bush's sharpest words came in April during the biennial session of the Texas Legislature. The governor condemned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for using "heavy-handed tactics" to "meddle" with the Legislature's efforts to revamp the emissions testing program.

"It's bad public policy for the federal government to have heavy-handed bureaucrats enter into the Texas legislative process demanding a solution the way they see it, not the way elected officials of Texas will eventually rule," Bush said.

"It's not right, and we resent it in Texas, and [EPA Administrator Carol] Browner better get ahold of her agency," the governor said.

What drew Bush's ire? A letter to him from Mary Nichols, the EPA's assistant administrator for air and radiation. She warned that an emissions testing proposal in the state Senate would fall short of federal requirements.

The Legislature's leading critic of the emissions testing requirements, Senator John Whitmire, immediately delivered an impassioned, 15-minute personal privilege speech to the Senate. "We need to stand up for Texas and let the EPA know: Let Texans run Texas," said Whitmire.

In response, Nichols defended her comments. "It was our obligation to inform Texas officials that the inspection program now under consideration may not get the full reduction in air pollution normally obtained by inspection programs," she said.

Unmollified, the Senate voted to delay emissions testing for two years. Although senators acknowledged that this was unrealistic, they insisted that it was important to send a strong message to the EPA. The bill ultimately passed by the Senate and House and signed by Bush restores an older testing program and grants the governor the authority to negotiate a new plan with the EPA.

EVOLUTION OF A HOT ISSUE

To understand how emissions testing became such a hot issue in Texas, it is useful to examine the genesis of the program.

In Texas as in other states, the biggest cities tend to have the worst air pollution. Under the 1977 amendments to the Clean Air Act, some of those areas had to test tailpipe emissions from cars and light trucks.

The 1990 amendments recognized that those relatively unsophisticated tests weren't doing enough to curb ground-level ozone, a form of oxygen produced when hydrocarbon emissions from vehicles and other sources undergo chemical changes in the presence of heat and sunlight. Ozone can cause respiratory problems, especially in young children, the elderly and people with chronic respiratory illness. It is principally a summertime pollutant.

Under the 1990 amendments, states are required to upgrade and expand their emissions testing programs in "nonattainment areas," the regions where air quality falls short of federal standards. The penalties for failing to do so are severe: loss of federal highway construction funds and sharp limits on industrial growth.

The Bush EPA took a firm position on what sort of program would pass muster. To achieve the maximum credit for reducing ozone pollution, states would have to set up centralized testing in which vehicles are tested at a network of facilities that exist solely for that purpose. The facilities would be fitted with sophisticated equipment including treadmills called dynamometers to simulate a variety of driving conditions. If a vehicle failed this so-called IM 240 test, it would have to go elsewhere for repairs, returning to the centralized facility for a retest.

In contrast, the old, decentralized system was more convenient. Motorists could take their vehicles to neighborhood garages for a simple tailpipe test at idle. The same garage could make any needed repairs. EPA studies, however, showed that many polluting clunkers were passing that test. And the agency's covert surveys revealed that fraud was a problem. Some mechanics passed vehicles that failed the test as a concession to irate motorists while...