IV

103D CONGRESS

2D SESSION H. CON. RES. 309

Expressing the sense of the Congress with respect to the use of selective

Inspection and Maintenace (I&M) programs as part of State implementation plans under the Clean Air Act.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

OCTOBER 6, 1994

Mr. BARTON of Texas submitted the following concurrent resolution; which

was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

Expressing the sense of the Congress with respect to the

use of selective Inspection and Maintenace (I&M) programs as part of State implementation plans under the

Clean Air Act.

Whereas the Environmental Protection Agency’s mobile

source emission model, such as MOBILE 4 and MOBILE 5, have seriously underestimated the contribution

of mobile source emissions to overall pollution, and tests

indicate that mobile source pollution is two to three times

greater than the Environmental Protection Agency model

predicts;

Whereas recent studies indicate that a small percent of the

in-use automobiles cause a disproportionate percentage of

the pollution (called gross polluters), and as little as 10
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percent of in-use vehicles cause 50 percent of the pollution;

Whereas studies conducted by the California Air Resources

Board indicate that current conventional I&M programs

have been shown to be ineffective, and results of roadside

surveys conducted in California have shown that failure

rates of vehicles and tampering of vehicles in I/M areas

and non-I/M areas are identical;

Whereas 40 percent of all gross polluting cars have been tampered with, in spite of the best efforts of I/M programs;

Whereas information suggests that both old and new cars are

gross polluting cars; because there are many more new

cars than old, new cars contribute a larger portion of mobile source pollution;

Whereas there is little evidence that a newer fleet in and of

itself would be a significantly cleaner fleet; new cars become gross polluters at a rate comparable to older cars;

Whereas all approaches that attempt to solve the problem

created by a small percentage of the fleet, by treating the

fleet as a whole, are cost ineffective in fighting automobile emissions, and detrimental to our economy;

Whereas research indicates that an effective way to locate

gross polluters and locate cheaters is through on-road remote sensing of vehicle emissions;

Whereas remote sensing can make thousands of more measurements than conventional methods in the same time

frame, cannot be cheated on, is many times cheaper, and

allows society to concentrate on the small percentage of

cars that cause the pollution; remote sensing is fully sufficient in identifying carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons;
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initial findings indicate it will be equally effective for nitric oxide;

Whereas remote sensing of in-use vehicle emissions now

makes feasible to directly determine mobile emission

trends, and thereby to assess the effectiveness of current

emissions control activities and aid in predicting the utility of possible new emissions approaches; and

Whereas present flaws in this country’s I/M program will be

perpetuated unless corrected: Now, therefore, be it

1 Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate

2 concurring), That (a) the Environmental Protection Agen3 cy should modify regulations that implement the Clean Air

4 Act to permit any State in nonattainment to adopt a State

5 Implementation Plan that relies wholly or partly on a se6 lective Inspection and Maintenance program. Such selec7 tive Inspection and Maintenance program should focus on

8 how best to locate and repair that small proportion of the

9 fleet that causes the majority of the pollution, called gross

10 polluters. States should adopt the most cost-effective

11 method of locating and fixing gross polluters, but shall

12 consider the use of on-road remote sensing as one method

13 of screening automobiles.

14 (b) Environmental Protection Agency regulations

15 under the Clean Air Act should provide that States which

16 opt for a selective I/M program will receive the appropriate

17 credits which are in no event less than the actual pollution

18 reduction achieved by such a program and should provide
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1 that in determining the actual pollution reduction that is

2 achieved, States do not need to use any computer model

3 but may rely on actual data accumulated during the use

4 of the above program.

5 (c) Environmental Protection Agency regulations

6 under the Clean Air Act should require States to compile

7 the information gained through the use of infrared remote

8 testing and other methods of on-road testing. After one

9 year’s time, such information should be sent to a central10 ized data base where an individual panel of experts, to

11 be selected by the National Research Council, should be

12 convened annually, to evaluate this data. The Panel should

13 use this and other appropriate information to report on

14 on-road emission status and trend, the effectiveness of

15 current and proposed vehicle emission control activities,

16 and recommendations regarding improvements to correct

17 deficiencies and enhance the capabilities of the Environ18 mental Protection Agency’s mobile source emission

19 models.

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