Tennessee May End Emissions Testing

NASHVILLE, TN -- The days of waiting until the end of the month and sitting in line at the auto emissions testing center could be coming to an end.

A bill, sponsored by Rep. Mike Carter (R-Ootlewah) and Sen. Bo Watson (R-Hixson), would bar counties who are in "attainment status" - that is, that they meet federal clean air standards - from requiring emissions testing. Six Tennessee counties - Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford, Sumner, Wilson and Hamilton - require auto emissions testing under a 1993 law designed to bring them into compliance with federal clean air standards.

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 Thursday, 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.

Photo by Olivia Lind, used with permission