RE: [ihc] About those parking brakes .....

[Tom Harais <THarais@xxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Shubin [mailto:pshubin@domain.elided] 
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2004 8:41 PM
To: ihc@domain.elided
Subject: RE: [ihc] About those parking brakes .....

		Found out after the whole ordeal with the State that any
do-gooder can
		report a car that is polluting "too much" and call in
		the license plate number to the State and then they come
after you.  I
		tried the number tonight and it still connects you to the
South Coast Air > Quality Management District.


That's a CARB rule, but the program is run by private industry.  Its what we
like to call a private/government partnership".  The sponsor gets pollution
"credits" for getting older (in relative terms, our IH vehicles are great,
great grand dads compared to what they think is "old") cars off the road and
crushing them so the parts can't be recycled.  UNOCAL in southern California
has had the largest program that I know of.

In CA we have 35 regional and/or county Air Quality Management Distircts
(AQMD) that are somewhat autonomous AND we have the Cal Air Resources Board
(CARB) with state level regulatory powers overseeing "air pollution".  We
even have our own EPA! These are some of the duplicate functions our new
governor has gone after to streamline the state government.

Furthermore, the agencies do not always agree (fed, state, regional).  I was
involved as a transit agency representative in CARB's drafting of the "Fleet
Bus Rule" AND I was working with a committee of diesel engine manufacturers,
bus and truck manufacturers, transit agencies and the Sacramento AQMD on
another program at the same time.  The Sac AQMD director was outspokenly
opposed to some of CARB's proposals for curtailing diesel emissions as being
the wrong approach that would prevent development of cleaner engines rather
than encourage them (NOx and PM were the latest boogeymen to be slayed).
Don't even get me started on this subject!  Ask Hofs or anyone who's heard
me rant.

http://arbis.arb.ca.gov/homepage.htm <http://arbis.arb.ca.gov/homepage.htm> 

We have at least 14 other "environmental" agencies at the state level in
Kalifornia.

http://my.ca.gov/state/portal/myca_leftnav_categories.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0
080556293.1096470880@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccccadcmjhkdehdcfngcfkmdffidfog.0&sLeft
NavCategoryPath=%2fNavigation%2fEnvironment+and+Natural+Resources%2fEnvironm
ent+and+Natural+Resources+Agencies&sNavTitle=California+Environment+and+Natu
ral+Resources+Agencies


There are 35 regional AQMDs in California 

http://www.arb.ca.gov/capcoa/roster.htm#AMADOR
<http://www.arb.ca.gov/capcoa/roster.htm#AMADOR> 

http://www.arb.ca.gov/capcoa/dismap.htm
<http://www.arb.ca.gov/capcoa/dismap.htm> 

I think you get the drift.  Does anyone wonder why on holidays that only
government employees get the traffic volume is reduced by 2/3rds?

	> Many years ago I went to reeducation camp, sorry,
	> I intended to write graduate school, at Cal Poly Pomona.  Every
year my
	> illustrious professors in the College of Environmental Design
would invite > one or two of the numerous alumni who worked at the SCAQMD to
come and > talk to the College about suburban sprawl, transportation
planning, smog, and how we all had to learn to take the train

As a Transit planner, I deal with these folks almost every day; urban
planners, transportation planners, local & state politicians.  Throw in a
few elite scholars from UC Berkeley and you get a real sense who is steering
our lives.  All I can say is scary, really scary.  They all think they have
the ultimate solution to our "problems" and they also have, or have access
to, the power to set laws and enforce them to make us all comply with their
utopian designs.  The public is either apathetic or supportive.  After all,
who would support "urban sprawl" or "congestion" or "pollution".  To oppose
these illustrious thinkers/planners/regulators is to support these 

Even my own transit agency is full of hypocrites.  We constantly extol the
virtues of taking the bus (and, there are many in this environment)to the
public.  But do you think that any of the executive or staff people here
take the bus?  No, we have a van and a car and they take those all the time
rather than taking the bus and/or BART.  Even though we get a universal pass
for bus use as one of our perks!  Myself, I use our express bus and BART
regularly to attend meetings in Oakland.  I've used our buses for other
local trips as well.  


	This was around the time that the SCAQMD would buy your old car for
$600, crush it for you to get it off the road, and sell pollution credits to
industrial polluters to cover the money they gave to you for your car.


That's still around.  It's $500.  And, it's known as the "crush program"
since one of the requirements is that the turned in auto be destroyed so
that it has no parts fit for recycling.  All the AQMDs have one.
Interestingly enough, and typically governmental, I get an offer every year
to accept $500 for my 1969 Camaro Z/28 if I turn it in to the crush program.
;-)  Obviously, no human ever reviews the process once it's set in motion.
		They "felt" it was important to get the old cars off the
road so it was important to get the old cars off the road.  
Don't be so insensitive.  "Feelings" are important.  And, some folks
feelings are more important than others.  After all, some pigs are more
equal than other pigs.

For those of you that are laughing about this and having derogatory thoughts
about California, I have one word:  BEWARE!  Most other states are looking
longingly at California's excesses and devising ways to incorporate the same
kinds of agencies/programs there. Don't kid yourself.  It will happen to you
to!

Tom H., '76 Traveler

I just realized that maybe IH was smart to go out of business.  Certainly
smarter than facing all of this regulation as those of us that continue to
carry the torch are dealing with.