Despite concerns about growing ozone levels on the Front Range, state environmental regulators are considering increasing the time new cars can be on the road without a tailpipe emissions test to eight years.
Vehicles are currently exempt from inspection until their fourth model year.
Under a plan presented to the state Air Quality Control Commission on Thursday, exemptions might be given up until the eighth year.
Officials with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment acknowledge that if more cars are allowed to skip inspections, the consequence might be more air pollution.
Nonetheless, the department has been charged by Gov. Bill Owens to eventually phase out the program, which costs an estimated $26 million a year to operate.
“Model-year exemptions are quick, easy and simple to do and should have been looked at years and years ago,” said Doug Decker, an official in the department’s air pollution control division.
Also Thursday, commissioners were told the Front Range this summer saw substantial levels of ozone, putting the region at risk of violating federal clean-air goals.
“Why do this now?” asked Ken Lloyd, director of the Regional Air Quality Council.
Decker said the division realizes increasing exemptions presents certain challenges, such as finding another source to offset any pollution increase.
Also, the move would probably decrease usefulness of the department’s RapidScreen roadside testing program.
Using infrared and ultraviolet beams of light, RapidScreen analyzes a passing vehicle’s plume of exhaust and approves drivers of low-polluting vehicles, allowing them to skip a trip to an emissions testing facility.
Newer cars with an up to eight-year inspection exemption would not need RapidScreen.
Legislation passed this year requires the health and environment department to ramp up the RapidScreen program and develop another to catch vehicles that emit high levels of air pollution.
Some commissioners believe catching the smoke-belching clunkers is the most effective way to reduce auto pollution.
“Our whole program has been backward from the start,” Commissioner Doug Lawson said. “We should be doing dirty screens instead of clean screens.”
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 at about 14 testing centers run by Envirotest Systems Corp.
Current rules require that vehicles in the metro area more than 4 years old get the tougher test every two years for a fee of $25. Cars made before 1982 must get the basic test every year for $15.
The division is scheduled to formally present the model-year exemption plan in September. The commission could vote on it before the end of the year.
Staff writer Kim McGuire can be reached at 303-820-1240 or kmcguire@denverpost.com.
