Environment panel kills bill

BOISE – Rep. Dick Harwood, R-St. Maries, failed to persuade the House Environment Committee on Thursday to introduce his bill to repeal last year’s vehicle-emissions testing bill.

The panel voted 6-5 to reject the bill, though some members agreed with Harwood that there’s really no air pollution problem.

“Our emissions have been going down since the mid-’70s, down, down, down,” Harwood told the panel.

He said he feared the vehicle-testing program would spread to North Idaho, because last year’s bill applies statewide to areas where vehicle emissions hit certain levels.

“We’re spending a pile of money testing for emissions for something that’s not going to make much of a difference,” Harwood said.

Rep. Erik Simpson, R-Idaho Falls, told Harwood, “I would agree with what you said, in that vehicles are unfairly targeted in the attempt to try and reduce these greenhouse emissions.”

The law in question, however, doesn’t regulate greenhouse gases, which aren’t regulated by the state. It targets vehicle emissions.

Rep. Stephen Hartgen, R-Twin Falls, said new federal gas mileage standards will cut vehicle emissions.

“So in the future we can expect that Boise air pollution would probably cease to be a problem,” Hartgen told the committee.

State Department of Environmental Quality Director Toni Hardesty said that could happen in the long term, but the Boise area is seeing huge traffic increases that outpace any gains from fuel efficiency.

Harwood also suggested that the DEQ is placing air quality monitors in the most-polluted areas to collect high readings, and that when pollution goes down, the federal Environmental Protection Agency lowers pollution standards so it can keep regulating.

“It’s just a vicious turn,” Harwood said. “… I don’t know where we end up stopping.”

Hardesty, in a phone interview, said the DEQ follows federal criteria in its placement of the monitors.

Congress requires the EPA to review air standards every five years to ensure they protect public health, she said.

“Certain pollutants have been reduced over time, and that’s good news,” Hardesty said. She said it shows regulations are working.

Committee members said they went through extensive negotiations and hearings last year on the bill and weren’t inclined to repeal it now just as the DEQ is negotiating rules to put it into effect.

Harwood said he’d like to exempt North Idaho from the law. His constituents are worried, he said, about possible vehicle testing requirements.

“That’s been a big concern for folks,” he said, “that we’re going to have to comply when we don’t have any problem.”