The Salt Lake County Health Department has kowtowed to the EPA and has set a date for the start-up of the infamous IM 240 emission control system that the EPA has been forcing on the public in many areas of the country.
What does this mean to the drivers of Salt Lake County? It will cost much more to get your car licensed starting in January '98. It most likely means it will take a lot longer to get your car safety-inspected and IM tested, since only the big businesses and dealers will be able to afford the $30,000 to $40,000 for the equipment to perform the new testing procedure to be implemented in January '98. It also means that you most likely will not be able to take your car to the garage of your choice and have the mechanic who has been servicing your cars for who knows how long.It is bad enough to have your car tested now at $14 each year; what will it cost with IM 240 - $25 or more? Most likely it will be more. It will have to be to justify the cost of this new equipment.
This testing was used in several Eastern states a couple of years ago at a great expense to the people of those states, and was stopped because it was to expensive and time consuming, but it also just did not work. Many of these test states have gone back to the same testing that we are using right now and have told EPA to get off their backs and to let them run the program their way. The EPA holds the purse strings on highway funds for Utah, and they are forcing the state and counties along the Wasatch Front to go along with their IM 240 program to get highway funds that we have already paid the feds in taxes for the purpose of highway construction in our state.
I believe it is time for the people of Utah to tell EPA where they can go and what they can do with their IM 240 program. It is also time we let not only our state and local officials know that we have had enough but also our senators and congressmen in Washington to get the EPA out of Utah and leave us alone. If we don't do it now we will have this program to contend with this as of January '98. And it will be as much our fault as our elected officials.
Tom Kenney
Sandy