United States Air and Radiation EPA420-F-99-030
Environmental Protection August 1999
Agency
Office of Mobile Sources
Regulatory
Announcement
Proposed Flexibility Amendments to
Inspection/Maintenance Program
Requirements
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing revisions
to the motor vehicle Inspection and Maintenance (I/M) requirements to
incorporate recent policy decisions and statutory requirements. This
proposed rule will also provide states the additional flexibility necessary
to design and implement programs best suited to local needs.
Background
The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (CAA) required certain
nonattainment areas across the country to implement either basic or
enhanced vehicle I/M programs, depending upon the severity of the
area's air quality problem. The CAA also required that Metropolitan
Statistical Areas with 1990 populations over 100,000 within an Ozone
Transport Region (OTR) implement enhanced I/M regardless of their air
quality designation. EPA, in turn, was required to develop minimum
performance and administrative requirements to be met by areas required
to implement I/M, whether basic or enhanced.
On November 5, 1992, EPA issued its original rule establishing mini-
mum performance and administrative requirements for states developing
air quality implementation plans for I/M. For enhanced I/M areas, this
rule included a performance standard that assumed IM240 tailpipe
emission testing as well as evaporative system purge and pressure test-
ing. This performance standard was amended in 1995 and 1996 such that
the current I/M rule requires enhanced I/M programs to produce the
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The flexibility
that would
result from
this rule would
apply to any
state required to
implement I/M.
same or better emission reductions as would be achieved by one of three
possible enhanced I/M performance standards: high enhanced, low
enhanced, and OTR low enhanced.
As a result of the original presumption of IM240 and evaporative system
testing, some of the I/M rule's remaining test procedure and related
requirements are too prescriptive and might possibly exclude valid,
alternative test methodologies. EPA is therefore proposing to revise these
requirements to ensure that innovative approaches will not conflict with
dated requirements.
The current I/M rule also retains the 1992 requirement that enhanced
I/M programs provide motorists that fail the inspection with computer-
generated information based on particular portions of the test. This
requirement was again based upon the presumption that all enhanced I/
M programs would include IM240 tailpipe testing. However, when the
National Highway System Designation Act was passed in 1995, one of
the provisions specifically barred EPA from requiring IM240 in en-
hanced I/M programs. In place of the EVI240, a wide-range of alternative
I/M tests have been approved for use in enhanced I/M programs. These
tests do not produce the detailed diagnostic information originally
envisioned in 1992, and we therefore propose changing this requirement
to better accommodate these alternative testing strategies.
EPA believes that revisions are needed to bring the I/M rule up to date
by: (1) incorporating changes in policy; (2) revising provisions to make
them consistent with the National Highway Systems Designation Act of
1995; and (3) providing states additional flexibility to tailor their I/M
programs to better meet current and future needs. Among these are the
need to maximize program efficiency and customer convenience by
capitalizing on newer vehicle testing options, such as on-board diagnos-
tic (OBD) system testing, and the need to accommodate an in-use fleet
which is in the process of turning over to newer, cleaner, and more
durable vehicle technologies. It is necessary to remove certain restric-
tions in the current rule that would impede that transition.
Key elements of the proposed rule include:
Amending performance standard requirements to provide enhanced
I/M areas greater flexibility to meet the performance standard.
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• Revising certain test procedures, standards and equipment require-
ments to better accommodate alternative test types and design,
including but not limited to OBD-based approaches.
• Revising the requirements for consumer protection and improving
repair effectiveness to limit the current requirements to provide
diagnostic information to those programs and test types capable of
producing such information, reliably and practically.
Expanding the options for complying with the on-road testing
requirement to accommodate more recent variations, such as clean
screening and non-tailpipe based roadside tests by removing
current language that suggests that the on-road test must be a
tailpipe test.
• Removing the current provision establishing the decentralized test-
and-repair discount in response to the National Highway System
Designation Act of 1995. And extending the definition of decentral-
ized test-only to allow testing stations that engage in a full range of
sales not directly related to automotive sales or services to still be
considered test-only.
The flexibility that would result from this rule change would apply to
any state required to implement I/M, but only states that choose to
utilize the options for additional flexibilities would be affected by the
proposed change. Modifications to a state's I/M program as a result of
this proposed rule change may require a SIP revision, if a state's plan
has been submitted and approved.
For
Additional documents on I/M programs are available electronically from
the EPA Internet server at:
http://www.epa.gov/oms/im.htm
For further information on this proposed rule, please contact David
Sosnowski at:
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Mobile Sources
2000 Traverwood Drive
Ann Arbor, MI 48105
734-214-4823
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