Denver-area motorists may no longer have to take their vehicles in for emissions inspections under a proposal by the state’s top environmental regulator.
Doug Benevento, the director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, has asked the state Air Quality Control Commission to consider eliminating the 10-year-old program by next year.
If the program isn’t killed, Benevento has called for changes such as increasing the number of model-year exemptions or relying more on remote sensing devices.
The state has already deployed vans equipped with infrared and laser sensors to detect polluting cars.
The emissions inspections, Benevento said, may no longer be needed to protect air quality in the seven-county Denver region because of better auto technology and cleaner-burning fuels.
“At $26 million a year, this is a very expensive program,” Benevento said. “It’s time to ask ourselves whether we are seeing the kind of gain in air quality to justify this expense.”
On Thursday, the commission will consider taking the program out of Colorado’s federally enforceable air-quality plan.
Earlier this year, the commission voted to eliminate emissions inspections in Fort Collins, Greeley and Colorado Springs.
To abolish the Denver program, however, the department also needs legislative approval, which probably won’t happen this year, Benevento said.
The proposal drew criticism from environmental advocates.
“Colorado’s health and environment officials have, paradoxically, devoted enormous resources to rolling back long- standing clean-air protections for industrial sources, automobiles and fuels,” said Vickie Patton, a Boulder-based attorney for Environmental Defense.
The metro area is in compliance with federal standards for fine-particle pollution, carbon monoxide and ozone, the prime ingredient in urban smog.
The skies over Denver, however, haven’t always been clean.
In the 1970s, Denver had the worst carbon monoxide in the nation, according to state officials, and the infamous “brown cloud” was a constant presence.
After repeatedly violating national health guidelines for air quality, the state enacted basic tailpipe-emissions testing in the early 1980s.
That program allowed drivers to get a $9 annual emissions test at any of 900 privately run garages.
In 1995, the state launched a tougher inspection program that measured emissions under simulated driving conditions at about 14 testing centers run by Envirotest Systems Corp.
Current rules require that vehicles more than 4 years old get the enhanced test every two years for a fee of $25. Cars made before 1982 must get the basic test every year for $15.
“It’s the state of Colorado’s program to implement, but we’re very hopeful that we can continue our current partnership,” said Staasi Heropoulos, a spokesman for Envirotest’s parent company, Connecticut-based Environmental Systems Products Inc.
News of the program’s possible demise upset Dana Tepoel, owner of the Emissions Clinic, a Westminster car-repair shop.
Scrapping the inspection program would hurt business and local air quality, Tepoel said.
“This one little repair shop has fixed enough problems that you could fill up the Pepsi Center 25 times over and kill everyone in it with the amount of carbon monoxide we’ve detected,” he said.
Staff writer Kim McGuire can be reached at 303-820-1240 or kmcguire@denverpost.com.
