Road to cynicism

The Board of Environmental Protection last week decided, 5-2, to continue with an incentive program that would get some older, more polluting cars off the road. But without a secure source of funding, the state could be headed for another trip down the road to CarTest.

CarTest, many will remember with a shudder, was the company that in 1994 ran an emissions program used to identify high-polluting cars and to get their owners to repair them. But for many reasons the process of getting drivers to have their cars tested and the results of those tests never met the public’s expectations, and what started out as a good idea became a large headache all around. CarTest lasted but two months before general public disapproval brought its business to a merciful close in Maine.

The thought of giving the owners of old, high-polluting cars a voucher worth $1,000 or $2,000 toward the purchase of a fuel-efficient vehicle is also a good idea, as the BEP noted last week in deciding to proceed with the program. So good, in fact, that 350 people have expressed interest to the state about it though the program is not scheduled to begin until Nov. 1. They may be surprised to learn that the Legislature approved this plan without funding it, creating at least two unhappy constituencies.

The first will be those who believed the state government and thought they really were going to get financial help on a new vehicle. The second are the people who would be taking the old ones and recycling parts of it and junking the rest. They figure it costs them $500 to drain and prepare a car for recycling; payback in the form of $25 a ton for scrap metal doesn’t come close to covering the cost and the market for parts from the junkers being recycled is small. A third group, the general public not participating in the program but watching it, may be less unhappy than plain disgusted with government.

Approximately $500,000 a year is needed for the car-voucher program, but in the early years it may be as much as $1 million, especially if the recyclers are properly compensated. The program is a promising way for Maine to help clean its air and should have been both passed and funded. But however the Legislature voted on the program, if lawmakers did not also fund it or find other sources of money for it, the public should conclude that the proposal was as good as defeated. Better that than add to the cynicism toward government already prevalent in Maine and elsewhere.