Butch Gardner (ACCC Director); Carl Agnew (LASC member); Bill Adams (ACCC Director); and myself attended the hearing yesterday on the IMRC proposed recommendations. The meeting was fairly uneventful and was the last meeting of this committee.

The main jest of the meeting was at the very last minute and prior to final approval, one of the members made a motion to strike language from the report that called for the elimination of the under hood inspections on OBD vehicles. The motion did pass and the language was removed. In other words the IMRC voted to recommend a full visual inspection on all smog inspections no matter the year/model of the vehicle. This goes against the language that the ACCC and LASC recommended to Senator LaMalfa in his SB519. There was also discussion regarding the exemption on pre 76 vehicles and the committee mentioned that they were not recommending any changes to the pre 76 exemptions. The wording in the report referring to "Older Vehicles" pertained mostly to vehicles that were 1976 to 1995 vehicles. Other than that the meeting was as I said uneventful.

The good news is that we had the opportunity to speak to a major contach we have made over the last few months from CARB and he mentioned that SB519, with new language, was back on the table and he personally, and off the record, had no problem with the new language. If you remember this is the same bill that Senator LaMalfa asked us for help with. In this bill we recommended language that would eliminate the visual, under hood, inspections on 1996 and newer vehicles. Senator LaMalfa accepted the new language with a change in the Yr/Model to 2000 and newer instead of the 1996 Yr/Model change. So that is good news.
We also had the opportunity to speak with Sherry Mehl, Chief of the Bureau of Auto Repair. I mentioned to Sherry that we, the car hobby, were very concerned about "Roadside Inspections' and the use of "Remote Sensing Devices". She said that we should not be concerned with the Roadside Inspections, in that pre 76 are exempt from those inspections and that those inspections are voluntary and also that there are no punitive actions taken at those inspections. Those inspections are done only to evaluate smog stations performance.

She also mentioned in so many words that the Remote Sensing Devices are not as accurate as they need to be, too expensive, and the BAR as well CARB were concerned about the threat of potential lawsuits that the state would lose in court do to inaccuracies of the devices.

That's about all I have, contact me with questions or concerns…
Thanks Rex (Roden)

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