What's All The Fuss About The EPA 'Banning' Modifications For Racing Cars?
If you spent any time browsing CT last night, you’ll have seen ‘EPA’ and ‘banning’ crop up quite a bit. So what is it that the USA’s Environmental Protection Agency has done that’s caused such a stir? It’s all to do with a proposed regulation catchily titled as the ‘Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Fuel Efficiency Standards for Medium- and Heavy-Duty Engines and Vehicles - Phase 2’. The offending part of the regulation is as follows: “the Clean Air Act does not allow any person to disable, remove, or render inoperative (i.e., tamper with) emission controls on a certified motor vehicle for purposes of competition.”
Pretty worrying, no? Particularly given how common it is to remove catalytic converters, change maps and perform numerous other emissions-effecting modifications on competition cars. And yes, this applies to cars which are used solely away from the public highway.
Naturally, this caught the attention of the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA), whose president and CEO Chris Kersting, said:
“This proposed regulation represents overreaching by the agency, runs contrary to the law and defies decades of racing activity where EPA has acknowledged and allowed conversion of vehicles…Congress did not intend the original Clean Air Act to extend to vehicles modified for racing and has re-enforced that intent on more than one occasion.”
In a press release, SEMA said that it has met with the EPA to discuss the proposal. “The EPA indicated that the regulation would prohibit conversion of vehicles into racecars and make the sale of certain emissions-related parts for use on converted vehicles illegal,” the organisation stated.
The EPA intends to publish final regulations by July 2016, but many could be breaking the law already. After seeking clarification on the organisation’s proposals, Autoblog was sent the following statement from the EPA:
“People may use EPA-certified motor vehicles for competition, but to protect public health from air pollution, the Clean Air Act has – since its inception – specifically prohibited tampering with or defeating the emission control systems on those vehicles.
The proposed regulation that SEMA has commented on does not change this long-standing law, or approach. Instead, the proposed language in the Heavy-Duty Greenhouse Gas rulemaking simply clarifies the distinction between motor vehicles and nonroad vehicles such as dirt bikes and snowmobiles.”
According to Autoblog, those falling foul of these tampering rules could be liable for a civil penalty of up to $37,500 “for each engine or piece of equipment in violation.” Whether or not the EPA will take the time to enforce such penalties is unclear.
We’ll be following this story with interest as it unfolds. In the meantime, discuss the news with the CT community: ‘EPA’ is trending
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
Welcome to Belgian laws people :D hahaha
The legit white house one
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/tell-epa-withdraw-its-proposal-prohibit-conversion-vehicles-racecars-0
Lol this petition already has over 109,000 signatures and they only needed 100,000 for it to be effective and withdraw the epa’s proposal
If this does go through, it’s not only going to effect car culture in a nearly unchangeable way, but this will also make a dent in the economy. Think about all of the revenue that the US government must make from taxes on car parts, not to mention, a majority of car manufacturers will lose sales. Some enthusiasts prefer to buy cars not for what they are out of the factory, but what they can be, for example, the WRX STI, Mitsubishi evo (even though it is currently discontinued) and the highly anticipated Ford Focus RS, on top of the potential, these cars are much cheaper to buy compared to cars from other manufactures, such as Porsche, BMW, Audi, or Mercedes which are purpose built for speed, handling, and luxury, right out of the factory.
THIS IS SIMPLE MADNESS!!! I MOVED TO MURICA FOR THEIR CARS AND CAR LIFESTYLE!!!!
Make electric car racing interesting and I’ll pay attention…
Because clean air.
the prius is behind this…
But if we can’t modify our cars how will we make Supras fast? (just a joke calm down :3)
After reading many of the comments, I tend to agree where most of this is going.
I study this kind of stuff in college, and I would agree that modified cars take up a small percentage in the overall pollution total. Many of the issues that we face are a ridiculous amount of methane from livestock and the massive amount of energy we use in our everyday lives, which results in companies powering your homes belch out unnecessary pollutants. With stricter controls on pollutants from major companies, better energy solutions such as wind and solar, providing better livestock solutions, and providing affordable/reliable electric cars for others to use daily rather than gas powered cars, this whole scandal with the EPA wouldn’t be a big issue.
Except most people like to forget how damaging to the planet making electric cars are. Mining lithium isn’t easy, and refining is just as hard. And all the shipping, in the end, might as well used some good ole dinosaur juice
Ok mods are bad says no one with a twin turbo