Executive summary

The
Economic Freedom
Network

Executive summary

Inspection and maintenance (I/M) programs place a legal requirement upon the owners of private cars and light trucks to submit their vehicles to a scheduled test for excessive emissions every year or every two years. Vehicles that fail the test must either be repaired and pass a re-test or receive a waiver to remain on the road. The owners of the vehicles must pay for both the test and the repairs.

I/M programs were developed during the 1970s in the United States, where government regulations imposing I/M programs spawned a billion-dollar vehicle-testing and consulting industry. In spite of the fact that in the United States, I/M programs have never been shown to provide anywhere near the benefits its supporters promised, the programs continue to be very popular with industry, government bureaucrats, and non-profit organizations.

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 testing contract expires in 1999. Although I/M programs fall within provincial jurisdiction, Environment Canada has been promoting I/M for 10 years and has developed an I/M Code of Practice through the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME). Ontario had originally announced that it would introduce its first I/M program during 1998, but the launch of the program has since been postponed.

The fact that I/M is popular with governments and has powerful friends in the private sector, and that it is paid for (and usually tolerated by) individual citizens has allowed it to escape both organized opposition and the scrutiny appropriate for government programs. Questioning I/M programs may incorrectly be considered tantamount to questioning the value of cleaner air.

Click Here to View Table E1

Let's question the value of I/M programs

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 6 days (see table E1). This amount does not include the environmental damage resulting from two million extra vehicle trips per year to and from testing and repair facilities.

What kind of value does AirCare give residents for their $63 million? The value of any reduction in emissions depends upon the adverse effect that the pollutant has on human health and the environment. According to a draft study done by ARA Consortium Sholtz & Associates (1995) for the GVRD, the British Columbia Ministry of Environment Lands and Parks, and Environment Canada:

(ARA Consortium Sholtz & Associates 1995: 2-16)

AirCare has virtually no effect on either SOx or PM10, the pollutants considered the most harmful. Table E2 gives the amounts and the value of the reductions in emissions of VOCs, NOx, and CO as claimed by AirCare and as calculated by an Automobile Protection Association study of the third year. Even AirCare's best claimed reduction in emissions reveals that consumers received less than a one percent return in environmental and health benefits for the average annual $63 million they were required by law to pay.

AirCare figures show that CO is the emission that accounts for the greatest number of tonnes reduced. Supporters of AirCare and I/M programs in general tend to lump emissions of CO together with VOCs and NOx. For example, in the Vancouver Sun June 7, 1996, Moe Sihota, then British Columbia'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 in emissions are for CO, the value of which is less than $1 a tonne. The total environmental and health value of the first three years of AirCare amounts to less than $154,000 from the reduction of CO, $937,700 from the reduction of VOCs, and $94,300 from reduction of NOx--a total of $1.2 million of claimed benefits that, after three years, cost residents of British Columbia 150 times that amount.

Click Here to View Table E2

Reviewing I/M programs

TIndependent scientific evaluations of I/M programs are rare. Evaluations of I/M benefits are usually made by the I/M program staff itself or by consultants who are hired by, and report to, the same authorities that are promoting the program. These reports often contain unjustifiable assumptions, strange methodology, and ``leaps of faith'' that tend to overstate the benefits of I/M programs. For example, 1500 tonnes (over 30 percent) of the reduction in VOCs that AirCare claims for year 2 are calculated on the basis of two assumptions that have no evidence to support them.

Click Here to View Figure E1

The Canadian federal government also supports I/M programs. The Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) mandated Environment Canada to co-ordinate the development of a national Code of Practice for I/M programs. Neither Environment Canada nor the CCME have been able to provide any scientific evidence that I/M either has been or will be effective. During the development of the Code of Practice, the CCME ignored virtually all the scientific evidence that casts doubt on the effectiveness of I/M strategies. The Code of Practice was not intended to provide a critical review of I/M programs but rather to sell the concept to bureaucrats and elected officials in Canada: ``The existence of a CCME Code of Practice will also assist provincial agencies in convincing both management and politicians that I/M should be implemented'' (CCME 1993: 2-8).

I/M programs in Canada

Even if I/M programs were reasonably effective in reducing vehicle emissions, such an expensive and inconvenient program is certainly not needed in British Columbia and it would have little or no impact in southern Ontario, because the marginal ozone problem that exists there is largely created by air flowing in from the United States, where half the ozone and its precursors originate. As the figure E1 shows, ground-level ozone is an American problem. Canadian exceedences of the levels of ozone acceptable to the US EPA are minuscule compared to ozone levels in the United States.

The original American ozone standard was established at 120 parts per billion (ppb) to protect the public health and allow for ``an adequate margin of safety''. Those to be protected include ``particularly sensitive citizens such as bronchial asthmatics and emphysematics who in the normal course of daily activity are exposed to the ambient environment'' (Rogers 1994: 158n.). On average, Vancouver experiences ozone levels above 120 ppb for only 30 minutes (0.006 percent) per year, Montreal only 48 minutes (0.01 percent) per year, and southern Ontario (Toronto is slightly less), only 2 1/2 hours (0.03 percent) per year. Exceedences in southern Ontario and Toronto are largely due to polluted air blown across the border from the United States.

Even using the Canadian standard, the number of ozone exceedences are extremely small. Between 1986 to 1993, Vancouver had an annual average of only 5 hours (0.06 percent) when ozone levels were over the ``acceptable'' 82 ppb standard. Montreal had an annual average of 16 hours (0.2 percent) and Toronto an annual average of 69 hours (0.9 percent) (CCME 1997: 99).

In Canada, as in the United States, the lobby for I/M programs has successfully crowded out more promising, more convenient, and more cost-effective alternatives in favour of the highly lucrative, scheduled testing of vehicles for excessive emissions. 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.

Last Modified: 03:42pm , August 28, 1998

info@fraserinstitute.ca

You can contact us at the above email address for any comments or information requests. Please report any dead links or technical problems.

Last Modified: Wednesday, October 20, 1999.