INDIANAPOLIS -- A former acting assistant EPA administrator and several state leaders are calling on Indiana’s senators to protect public health by implementing EPA vehicle emissions standards across the state.
Indiana is one of less than two dozen states that does not require emissions standards across the board. Only two Indiana counties, Lake and Porter, currently require residents to get bi-annual emissions tests on their vehicles.
That’s because Lake and Porter counties are lumped into a “nonattainment area” called EPA Region 5, which includes northeastern Illinois, Chicago and southeastern Wisconsin.
The Clean Air Act was amended in 1977 to require states to implement vehicle emissions inspection programs where air quality did not meet certain federal standards.
BMV | Indiana emissions testing program
Northwest Indiana meets both the 2008 and 2015 federal regulations for ozone, according to the Times of Northwestern Indiana, but because federal policy rarely allows backtracking on regulations, attempts to lift the testing requirements in these two counties over the past few years have failed.
Drivers in these counties must submit to BMV-administered vehicle emissions tests every other year if they own a passenger vehicle that is four years or older.
Some Hoosiers lawmakers have threatened to just stop testing in those counties, but if that were to happen, the federal government could withhold transportation funding for roads and mass transit as well as take over the state’s anti-pollution programs – which could result in stricter, more stringent testing across the board.
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Advocates of emissions standards in Indiana say the clean car standards help ensure that cars, pickup trucks and SUVs are more fuel-efficient, which saves Hoosiers money with every trip to the gas station. They also say implementing stricter standards would create more Hoosier jobs.
The group protested outside the Indianapolis City Market on Wednesday with Former Acting Assistant Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Janet McCabe, Indiana State Representative Ed Delaney, Environmental and Climate Justice Chair of the NAACP Denise Abdul-Rahman and Kelly Nichols from Moms Clean Air Force.
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