Backing off in the face of driver outrage, Maryland officials are moving to relax the state's controversial new auto emissions tests, due to begin Jan. 1.
Gov. William Donald Schaefer is expected today to announce changes in the every-other-year smog checks that would "provide more flexibility for motorists," said Merrylin Zaw-Mon, air management administrator for the Maryland Department of the Environment.
Ms. Zaw-Mon would give no details in advance of the governor's announcement, other than to say that "a certain number" of newer cars and light trucks would be exempted from testing on a dynamometer, a treadmill-like device used to measure a vehicle's emissions under actual driving conditions.
The new emissions tests have been a focus of intense motorist criticism recently, in part because they will be tougher to pass, take more time and be more expensive than the old tests. In addition, some drivers object to letting testing station technicians "drive" their vehicles on the dynamometer, at simulated speeds of up to 55 mph.
The move to soften Maryland's new test program is prompted by the Environmental Protection Agency's decision late last week to let other states opt for less burdensome or costly auto emission testing schemes, Ms. Zaw-Mon said.
"It's a way to use the flexibility that EPA is now providing," she said. "It does not drastically change the program, but there will be measures proposed that will facilitate the ease of the program."
Word that the governor would announce the changes came just a day after state environmental officials insisted that no major changes were planned. In an interview on Monday, David A. C. Carroll, secretary of the environment, and Ms. Zaw-Mon vigorously defended the new checks.
The Motor Vehicle Administration plans to begin mailing notices by the end of the month directing motorists to one of 19 new emissions testing stations. The new tests will cost $17, twice the current fee, and take longer, up to 15 minutes. Testing also will be expanded from the Baltimore and Washington suburbs to six new counties -- Calvert, Cecil, Charles, Frederick, Queen Anne's and Washington.
The state expects one vehicle out of five to fail the stricter new tests, up from about one in 12 that flunked the old checks, which involved sticking a pollution monitor up the tailpipe of the vehicle while the driver idled it. Owners will have to spend up to $250 in repairs next year to clean up the car's emissions, and the repair limit will increase to $450 by 1997.
News of the impending tests has generated an outcry in the past two weeks, with radio talk-show hosts pillorying the program daily and urging listeners to contact legislators.
Maryland officials already had softened the requirements of the new tests before this week. Emission limits for the next two years will be 25 percent to 50 percent less stringent than the final requirements, said Bruce E. Diehl, in charge of testing for the MVA.
The repair limits also are being phased in over two years, and older cars, built between 1977 and 1983, would not have to undergo the dynamometer tests. Cars built before 1977 did not have to have emission tests at all.
Two days ago, insisting that no major changes are planned, Mr. Carroll contended that Maryland's new tests will be fair, reasonable and the most effective way to reduce the smog that plagues the Baltimore and Washington areas every summer.
"It's the kind of thing no one is ever going to love doing," he said. But he likened the tests to going to the dentist and said it was necessary to protect the public's health, especially that of an estimated 600,000 Marylanders who suffer from asthma or other chronic breathing problems.
"We're all going to have to toe the line," Mr. Carroll said, noting that motor vehicles are the largest single source of pollutants that form smog. "Everyone is talking a good game about how they want healthy air for their kids, but when it's time to drive up to the line at the dynamometer, it's somebody else's problem."
The federal Clean Air Act sets deadlines for cities with smog problems to clean up their air. Baltimore has the sixth worst smog of any urban area in the country, according to the EPA, and has until 2004 to reduce unhealthful levels of ozone, the chief harmful ingredient in smog.
The EPA has been pushing smoggy states to crack down on auto emissions, using the dynamometers as part of more stringent testing. But several states, from California to Vermont to Virginia, have balked at the EPA's insistence on state-run inspection stations, with high-tech equipment that could cost $150,000 per station. State officials complained of the costs and inflexibility of the federally mandated system.
California was the first to win concessions, getting EPA approval last spring for a "hybrid" program in which some cars can still be tested at auto shops while others would have to go to testing stations.
Other states then began digging in their heels. Virginia officials defied EPA threats to withhold millions of dollars in federal highway funds. Pennsylvania's legislature overrode a gubernatorial veto and similar EPA threats to put that state's plans for a centralized testing system on hold.
Then, late last week, EPA administrator Carol Browner backed away from her agency's hard line, giving protesting governors from Delaware, New Jersey, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin more time and flexibility in meeting federal clean-air requirements.
The EPA has told those states that they may test newer cars using less sophisticated -- and less expensive -- equipment.
The agency also has relented on a requirement that New Jersey motorists have their cars rechecked at a state-run testing station after being repaired.
But EPA officials stressed this week that states have not been relieved of the need to eliminate unhealthful levels of ozone pollution. And easing up on testing requirements for motor vehicles may force even more costly and burdensome pollution controls on smokestack industries or small businesses.
"If they need the reductions, they're going to have to make them up from someplace else," said Richard D. Wilson, the EPA's director of mobile source pollution controls. He said the testing program planned by Maryland and four or five other states was the most effective of any now being contemplated.