Up In Smoke? Tennessee Closer To Ending Emissions Testing

NASHVILLE, TN -- Tennessee's 25-year-old emissions testing requirement is one step closer to coming to an end.

The state House of Representatives passed a bill Tuesday which would give the six counties which are currently required to test for emissions - Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford, Sumner, Wilson and Hamilton - the ability to opt out of the program.

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As originally introduced, the bill, sponsored by Rep. Mike Carter (R-Ootlewah) and Sen. Bo Watson (R-Hixson), barred counties which are in "attainment status" - that is, that they meet federal clean air standards - from requiring emissions testing. It was amended to allow the aforementioned half dozen counties which currently have testing to continue the program, so long as the county commission (or Metro Council, in Nashville's case) vote to re-authorize it within 30 days of the effective date of the act.

The Environmental Protection Agency says all of Tennessee now meets air quality standards.

"The honest truth is we're at 100 percent [attainment]," House Speaker Beth Harwell (R-Nashville) said in February, according to the Times Free Press. "We really have clean air in this state and it makes sense if everyone's going to do it, but just to have a few counties that do it and not everyone, that doesn't make sense. Because air doesn't stay within a county ."

The newspaper said Harwell described emissions testing as a "hassle" that is disproportionately harmful to the poor.

Tennessee Environmental and Conservation Commissioner Bob Martineau, however, said the idea is to prevent areas from "backsliding" into the bad graces of the EPA and said that some other offset may have to be found to stay on the EPA's good side. For example, he told the TFP, Shelby County was able to end its emissions testing because a number of manufacturers which had contributed to industrial air pollution had closed.

The bill is moving through the Senate's committee pipeline, but could be calendared for a vote in the upper chamber this week.

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