New Legislation Could Save Race Cars From The EPA's Clean Air Act
The United States’ Environmental Protection Agency caused a massive stir last month, when a proposed piece of regulation within the Clean Air Act appeared to outlaw the tampering of “emission controls” on road cars converted for competition use. To make matters worse, the EPA then released a clarification that seemed to suggest the practice was already illegal.
However, it looks like a solution is at hand in the form of a new bipartisan bill put together by several members of Congress. It’s called HR 4715, but we prefer its other name - Recognizing the Protection of Motorsports Act of 2016 - however, as it rather nicely abbreviates to the RPM Act.
What the bill proposes is that competition-only cars are made exempt from the Clean Air Act. It’ll be a while before we know if the bill is passed - it’s currently being considered by the House Energy and Commerce Committee - but it’s a positive step in the right direction.
Speaking about the news, SEMA President and CEO Chris Kersting said: “SEMA thanks Representatives McHenry, Cuellar, Hudson, Posey and Zeldin for introducing this bill…We intend to work closely with our congressional allies to ensure that the Clean Air Act continues to allow the conversion and use of street vehicles as racecars.”
Source: SEMA via Autoblog
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
Car guys - 1 nature fans - 0
As it should be.
We let them eat the grass of our hamburgers, so they should let us do what we want to our RACE cars.
Hey. This might mean we’ll see less street racing and more circuit racing, a good thing :D
Tell me you’re sober
Wait, why is the EPA doing this again? It’s obvious that there are not enough racecars running frequently enough to make the smallest difference in the environment. It’s all about money
Clean air act will also prohibit performance parts sales, which is a dumb thing to do because economy will drop
Because they’re insane. They think that climate change is a giant issue, which is arguable, but there is a lot of other things happening in this world that demand more attention, i.e. the pharmaceutical industry, the drug trafficking rings in the States, and ISIS. But no, this is obviously killing trillions of people every day. Not those things.
All regulations against emissions are a scam for money. Cars are such a small factor in global emissions yet we pay the price. Thanks to the horrible CO2 tax in the Netherlands we are in the top 3 of most expensive car markets.
Actually, big Factories like glass or plastic produce high amount of CO2. And yes, cars won’t produce that much compared to big Factories
I can 100% agree
We’re still going to do it. Even to road cars.
Exactly! What are they going to do, catch us in their G wizzes and on their bicycles?
The Tree huggers need a new target to torture: Factories.
and when we have no clothes what will you say?
Good, the EPA always attacks car people, because the government don’t make lots of money of of the car world. They could attack so many others businesses, but they make money off of those, so they leave them alone
If they do ban modification of cars I will start a petition against it. Sure racecars burn a lot of fuel and create emissions but it’s so small compared to the vast majority of other things that it wouldn’t be as big of an impact to change it as many would think.
trust me. your average WRC is DEFINITELY not street legal. all they share with their roadgoing counterparts is appearance
But what counts as competition only cars? Do they also include Rally cars, which have to be street legal?
WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE RALLY WORLD
AHHHHH