AirCare Program Just Blows Smoke

Public spends $63 Million a year for less than a $500,000 environmental benefit

Contact:

Laura Jones, Director of Environmental Studies
The Fraser Institute, (604) 714-4547, Email: lauraj@fraserinstitute.ca

Paul Coninx, Consultant
(514) 488-7961, Email: Coninx@compuserve.com

Release Date: 2 September 1998

Vancouver, BC>>> AirCare, BC’s mandatory vehicle inspection and maintenance (I/M) program, provides a less than one percent return in environmental and health benefits for its $63 million annual cost, according to a new Fraser Institute study, Vehicle Emissions Testing: AirCare, Drive Clean, and the Potential of Inspection and Maintenance Programs.

In 1992, British Columbia launched AirCare, the first I/M program in Canada. AirCare administration is now in the process of designing AirCare II to replace the original AirCare program when the current testing contract expires in 1999. Ontario had originally announced that it would introduce its first I/M program during 1998, but the launch of that program has since been postponed.

"In the absence of compelling scientific evidence of the effectiveness of I/M programs, the only reasonable action is to cancel AirCare and abandon any future plans for I/M programs in Ontario and the rest of Canada," says the study’s author, Paul Coninx.

The Cost of AirCare

During the first five years of AirCare, the average annual cost of the program, including test fees, repairs, expenses, and lost time, is conservatively estimated to have been nearly $63 million, or
$1 million every six days (Table 1). This amount does not include the environmental damage from two million extra vehicle trips, or diversions, to and from testing and repair facilities per year.

The value of any reduction in emissions depends upon the adverse effect that the pollutant has on human health and the environment. Even AirCare’s best claimed reduction in emissions reveals that consumers received less than a one percent return in environmental and health benefits.

I/M programs like AirCare claim to reduce three substances in a vehicle’s exhaust: CO (carbon monoxide), VOCs (volatile organic compounds, also called hydrocarbons), and NO_x (nitrogen oxides). Yet AirCare has virtually no impact on either SO_x (sulphur oxides) or PM₁₀ (particulate matter 10 microns or less in size), the pollutants considered to be much more harmful. Table 2 gives the amounts and the value of the reductions in emissions of VOCs, NO_x and CO as claimed by AirCare and as calculated by an Automobile Protection Association study of AirCare’s third year

CO accounts for over 90 percent of the total emissions AirCare claims to reduce, yet CO does not contribute to smog and causes "no discernible damage to human health or the [BC] environment," according to a draft study commissioned by the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD) and the BC Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks.

AirCare supporters tend to treat all emissions as equal, thereby disguising the program’s true value. For example, in 1996, Moe Sihota, then BC’s Environment Minister, was quoted as claiming that during its first three years, AirCare had reduced emissions by 165,000 tonnes. However, 93 percent of those claimed reductions are for CO, the value of which is less than $1 a tonne (value is calculated in terms of averted damage to human health, materials, crops, etc. per tonne). The total environmental and health value of the emissions reductions claimed for those first three years of AirCare consist of less than $154,000 from the reduction of CO, $937,000 from the reduction of VOCs, and $94,300 from the reduction of NO_x-a total of $1.2 million of claimed benefits that, after three years, cost residents of British Columbia 150 times that amount.

Questioning the Benefit of I/M Programs

Even if I/M programs were reasonably effective in reducing vehicle emissions, British Columbia has ozone levels that are miniscule compared to many regions in the U.S (Figure 1). "I/M programs are a failed American solution to a real American problem," says Mr. Coninx. Similarly any I/M program would have little or no impact in southern Ontario, because the marginal ozone problem that exists in that province is largely created by air flowing in from the United States.

The Fraser Institute’s study suggests that government support for AirCare and similar types of I/M programs has successfully crowded out more promising and cost-effective pollution control alternatives in favour of scheduled vehicle emission testing programs that are highly lucrative to special interests.

Table 2: Cost AirCare to consumers in the Vancouver area

Table 3: Emission reductions and their value as claimed by AirCare and as calculated by the Automobile Protection

Figure 1: Average annual oxone exceedences greater than 120 pph
(US:1984-1993;Canada: 1980-1993)

Note that this chart understates the real differences because the data for the United States
is in "days," each of which may contain many 1-hour exceedences. data from a Canadian
study suggests that "1 day" is toughly equivalent to 5 hours(CCME 1997:4).
Sources:Canadian Counciol of Ministers of the Environment(1997).Ground-level Ozone and its precursors, 1980-1993. Canadian 1996 NOx/VOC Science Assessment(Febuary).Report of the Data Analysis working Group. Ottawa, ON: CCME; United States Evironmental Protection Agency (1994a). National Air Quality and Emission Trends Report, 1993. Washington, DC: United States Environmentral Protection Agency.

Established in 1974, The Fraser Institute is an independent public policy organization based in Vancouver.

For further information:

Suzanne Walters, Director of Communications,

The Fraser Institute, (604) 714-4582,
Email suzannew@fraserinstitute.ca

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