By Patrick Crowley
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Bill Dorgan, lane manager at the Boone County Northern Kentucky Emissions Check station, measures exhaust gases. The Cincinnati Enquirer/PATRICK REDDY

Northern Kentucky counties could be the first in Greater Cincinnati to eliminate the unpopular $20 emissions test that most vehicles must go through every two years.

A bill - sponsored and pushed by Northern Kentucky GOP lawmakers - pending in the General Assembly would halt "tailpipe" testing by Nov. 1 in Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties. That bill, which has passed the Senate and awaits a House committee hearing, has strong support for passage this year, top legislators say.

"The Northern Kentucky Emissions Check Program is unconstitutional, illegal and unenforceable," said Senate President Pro Tem Dick Roeding, R-Lakeside Park, the bill's main sponsor.

Those feelings are echoed in Ohio, where a Cincinnati state lawmaker is promising an effort in 2005 to end E-Check emissions testing in Hamilton, Clermont, Warren and Butler counties.

Opponents have battled the tests from the beginning, claiming they are ineffective and do little to clean the air.

They also point out that Ohio and Kentucky environmental records show that nearly all newer cars pass the tests. That fuels the argument that newer models should be exempt from testing.

And they claim it is large industrial plants that should be targeted for pollution control, not motor vehicles.

Tom Hagedorn, a writer and retired investment broker from Anderson Township, had previously headed up a citizens group he formed called End the E-Check.

"I spent a lot of time looking into (testing) when it was first announced," Hagedorn said. "The more I read, the more concerned I became. I came to the conclusion that it is a very ineffective program."

Adds Ohio state Rep. Tom Brinkman, a Mount Lookout Republican: "I don't care if you're left, right, in the center or nonpolitical. Everyone I hear from feels the tests are absolutely bogus."

Testing under attack

The emissions tests came about a few years ago after the federal government ordered Greater Cincinnati to clean up the region's air by reducing smog.

At emissions testing sites, computer equipment is used to record a vehicle's tailpipe emissions and determine the outflow of materials that contribute to air pollution. Cars that fail must be checked out and repaired by a mechanic at the expense of the vehicle owner.

Without the test, a vehicle cannot be registered with the state, meaning the owner cannot receive a license plate or renewal sticker until the test is performed.

In Northern Kentucky, Florence resident Larry Brown organized Veto the VET, short for Vehicle Emissions Testing. With more than 1,000 members, the group regularly peppers lawmakers with e-mails, phone calls and letters to end vehicle testing.

Roeding and other lawmakers have said Brown's group has helped keep the issue alive in Frankfort.

"When I started learning about the program myself a few years ago, I was able to tap this grass-roots effort of people just like myself who don't want the program, who don't want to pay for the program and who don't think it works," Brown said.

Yet loud public outcries may not be enough to put an end to the testing in Kentucky or Ohio.

Motorists have complained as much in the past as they do now, but the testing continues. And while support has grown sharply in Ohio and Kentucky for legislation eliminating the tests, there is no full commitment from either legislature.

Pushing for change

Still, after three years of unsuccessfully trying, Northern Kentucky lawmakers appear to be in their best position ever to win passage of a bill killing the tests.

Roeding's bill - co-sponsored by Republican Senators Katie Stine of Fort Thomas, Jack Westwood of Crescent Springs and Damon Thayer of Georgetown - passed the Republican-controlled Senate along party lines on Jan. 27 and awaits a vote in the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee.

Rep. Paul Marcotte, R-Union, has introduced similar legislation in the House. But he is concerned that Roeding's bill is bogged down in the partisan politics of Frankfort.

"It hasn't been called yet in committee, but we're at a stage in the session where the (Democratic-controlled) House has not been calling many Republican bills," Marcotte said. "But once the logjam is broken I expect it to be heard. It's very definitely on the minds of our constituents. They want us to act."

Northern Kentucky lawmakers were encouraged last year when lawmakers from the Louisville area - the other region of the state that had implemented vehicle testing - successfully shepherded legislation through the General Assembly that killed the program in Jefferson County.

Testing opponents suffered a setback in January, when a federal judge in Louisville ruled that the Legislature violated the federal Clean Air Act by ending the program without permission of the U.S. EPA.

"That's definitely a concern," Marcotte said. "We don't want to vote in Frankfort to stop the program and then be told by a judge we have to keep it going. But we're going to proceed with the bill, because we believe it is an important step in ending the tests for good."

Is Ohio next?

In Ohio, Brinkman said he would make a move to eliminate the testing in 2005, when the contract with the testing vendor ends.

Under guidelines of the Clean Air Act of 1990, Greater Cincinnati, including Northern Kentucky, was branded by the U.S. EPA "non-attainment" for ground-level ozone - a lung irritant - which meant the region had too much ozone.

Ohio and Kentucky were told by the federal government to come up with plans to reduce smog. Both states turned to testing because vehicle emissions are a contributor to smog.

But critics question the value of testing newer vehicles in particular, because they almost always pass the tests.

In Ohio, less than 2 percent of vehicles built after 1997 fail the tests, according to the Ohio EPA. In Kentucky only 4.4 percent of vehicles built before 1981 fail. For vehicles built after 1993, the failure is about 1 percent, according to Kentucky Division for Air Quality.

Brown has seized on a passage in the division's 2002 annual report on vehicle testing that states "emissions reductions in a basic program such as this cannot be accurately quantified in terms of amounts reduced."

"That shows me right there we don't need the test, because we don't know how truly effective the testing program is," Brown said. "It's a sham."

If Kentucky and Ohio eliminate the tests, another type of ozone reduction plan must be put into place. Business leaders fear that would mean more costly environmental controls and regulations forced on industry, which could hurt the regional economy.

"Businesses in Northern Kentucky have already spent millions of dollars in emission control and cannot afford the cost of additional controls that will make only minimal reductions in their emissions," said Steve Stevens of the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, which has advocated maintaining vehicle testing.

Testing motor vehicles every other year "is not the correct approach" to cleaning up the air, Hagedorn argues.

"You need to take on the smokestack industries," Hagedorn said. "But they have heavy-duty lobbyists who have been able to convince legislators to try and control ozone by going after cars. Motorists don't have any lobbyists like that."

Frustrated at being unable to spur any change in Columbus, Hagedorn disbanded his grass-roots opposition group in 2001.

There has also been a long-time threat that the federal government would withhold highway money if the tests were eliminated.

Stevens believes the threat is real and that billions of dollars in federal highway money would be jeopardized.

Opponents such as Brinkman and Roeding say the threat is hollow. Other states have dumped testing and not suffered consequences, they claim.

"People hate the tests so much," Brinkman said, "I think they want us to thumb our nose at the (federal government's) threat and get rid of E-Check. From what I'm told, we have a choice on how we want to make the air cleaner. Motorists have done their part. We need to look at factories and smokestacks. Maybe it's their turn."

E-mail pcrowley@enquirer.com