$25,000 per vehicle ?!!
re: "The EPA rules were changed in 2002 making a requirement of testing on 300 cars (at $25,000 per car, that’s a total of $7,500,000 and taking a period of at least 18 months). "
Wow. When I was in NJ years ago, the emmision test involved sticking a probe up the cars exhaust pipe and a guy reading a meter. It took less than five minutes.
Who gets the $25,000? Is it an EPA fee? Somebody's brother-in-law at the EPA? And to think some people are worried about corruption in foreign contries!
How does one becoma a tester? What a racket. I think that I could spare a few minutes each day to test cars at $25,000 a pop.
There was a good documentary on TV (PBS?) a few weeks ago about a company called Lustron in the fifties. Like ethanol, their sudden market oppurtunity came about due to a government agency mandate, in this case to "encourage" affordable and easily built houses instead of the similar present mandate of encouraging alternate fuels.
The poor Lustron CEO guy, one day, turned down demands by somebody's "buddy" at the government agency to send business their way and the final straw was evidently refusing to make a large politcal campaign contribution. So the poltical appointess at the agency "pulled the plug" on him.
Here, it's a case of the letter of the law contradicting the spirit of the law.
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