Follow the Money...

Statesman Journal
State readies for car-emissions clampdown

"If the federal government doesn't want to move forward on global warming, then the states are going to have to do it," Kulongoski said.

Despite an effort by auto-industry lobbyists to kill the move, Oregon and Washington are getting ready to adopt California's newly implemented vehicle-emission standards to reduce greenhouse gases.
By 2016, all new cars, SUVs and light trucks sold in the West Coast states would have to comply with the tougher standards on emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which are thought to be a leading cause of global warming. The 2016 date was set to give automakers plenty of time to comply with the new standards.
The auto industry has fought to prevent the West Coast from becoming what environmentalists call a "clean-car corridor."
Washington lawmakers voted to bring the strict California car-emissions standards to their state. However, as part of a compromise, lawmakers made their bill contingent on Oregon adopting the same standards.interesting
Seeing an opportunity to kill the regulations in both states,auto industry lobbyists persuaded Oregon legislators to insert language into a state environmental policy budget for bidding the state spending money to adopt or enforce California style admission rules.
But Governor Kulongoski, who has aligned himself with environmentalists in the past, said that he will use his veto authority to delete that provision from the budget.


Okay, first off the Governor Kulongoski, cars are not the only major polluters in Oregon. Don't forget that we have field burning that pollutes our air.

Secondly, there's this interesting thing called "SAFETEA-LU" that President Bush signed on August 10, 2005 (more details in post below) authorizing $286.4 billion for transportation projects over the next six years. $8.6 billion for congestion and air quality.
The fact that Washington is also involved with wanting to bring on strict California car emission controls and the track record that the government has for being self-serving, makes the very suspicious that something else is going on.

Third, to my knowledge, Oregon already has two cities where cars have to pass DEQ emissions inspections to be licensed, this of course would mean that more cities will start testing vehicles and older older vehicles will have to go through inspections before it their registration could get renewed.

Fourth,I think it's very interesting that Kulongoski will say that "if the federal government doesn't want to move forward on global warming, then states are going to have to do it," but we won't take a stand on illegal immigration.

Increasing the environmental emissions standards is just going to increase the cost of living in Oregon, which is already very high as it is. I can see more people leaving the state because it cost too much to live here.

As Lars has pointed out many times before, the newer cars are already emissions efficient, and there is no proof that I'm aware of that legislation like this is really necessary.

Lastly, in my opinion, this is just another example of our government thinking that they are doing "what is best for the people" despite what people think.
want the truth, Follow the money!