Ontario's Drive Clean

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Ontario's Drive Clean is a controversial automobile emissions control program in Ontario, Canada. It applies only to drivers in southern Ontario at this time. It is administered through Ontario's Ministry of the Environment (Ontario) (MOE), and the Ministry of Transportation (MTO).

Vehicles under 4,500 kg (cars, SUV, light trucks) and over 3 years old (and up to the 19th year) will require an emission test every two years before the vehicle's owner or lessor can renew its license plate. A sticker is placed on a vehicle's front window to identify vehicles that have passed the test.

Heavy duty trucks and buses are also covered by Drive Clean program. Out-of-zone vehicles are monitored by a 'smog patrol' team for the MOE and are outside of the Drive Clean program. Similarly, fleet vehicles are often registered outside of Drive Clean zones by private corporations to avoid the additional costs of Drive Clean.^[1]

Contents 1 Coverage area 2 Changing standards 3 Test accuracy 4 Equity concerns 5 Impacts on air pollution 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Coverage area

The current coverage area for Drive Clean:

• Greater Toronto/Hamilton since 1999
• Southwestern Ontario - Sarnia to Niagara since 2001
• Eastern Ontario - Ottawa to Peterborough since 2002
• Heavy Duty vehicles - The entire province since 1999

[edit] Changing standards

The Drive Clean program has underwent several changes since its introduction in 1999 under then Ontario Premier Mike Harris. In 2003, standards for light-duty vehicles were tightened to require 11.5% lower vehicle emissions than the most stringent American EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) recommended standards. On November 18, 2005, the Minister of the Environment (Ontario) Laurel Broten announced several proposed changes to the Drive Clean program^[2]. Standards were tightened by a further 11.5%. Newer vehicles, which have a very high pass rate due to better emission control technology off the assembly line, are now exempted from the program until they are five years old. At the other end of the age spectrum, the exemption for vehicles 20 years old and older is being phased out. Vehicles built in 1988 and afterwards would have "fallen out" of the program after 19 years (for instance, a 1988 vehicle would no longer need testing after 2007). As a result of this change, such vehicles must continue to be tested every two years as long as they are on the road. Vehicles built in 1987 or before will still leave the program permanently when they are 20 years old.

Critics accuse the cash-strapped Dalton McGuinty government, which came into power in 2003 allegedly facing a 5.6 billion dollar deficit, of expanding Drive Clean for budgetary reasons rather than environmental protection.^[3][4][5] Ontario had already invested in expensive testing machines, and due to their recent purchase (1998-99) these will not be paid off until about 2014.^[6] Concurrent emissions technology improvements rendered the test machines obsolete, leading many observers to assume that Drive Clean's days were numbered. The program was however reformed on November 18th, 2005. Revisions to the program were made, in particular the introduction of annual testing and the removal of the 20-year-exemption^[7].

[edit] Test accuracy

Drive Clean's emissions test results have been shown to be unreliable in surveys carried out by the media such as in-depth work done by the Hamilton Spectator^[8] and consumer advocacy groups such as the Automobile Protection Association. In these surveys, it was shown that the same car can have extremely variable results in test results (up to 800 percent in one survey), even at the same garage or on the same day with no work being carried out on the car. (APA)^[9]. In 2004, the Ontario Auditor General reported on myriad cases of fraud within the Drive Clean program^[10], such as test facilities (garages) that, for a fee, would test a clean car and report those results instead. Other test facilities would fail a well-tuned car to generate additional work. For these reasons and others, consumer reports suggest drivers try another garage if their car fails a Drive Clean test, before proceeding with expensive repairs.

[edit] Equity concerns

Ontario's Drive Clean program provides no financial assistance to low-income drivers. This contrasts with otherwise similar mandatory emissions testing programs such as those in California, Texas and Arizona. ^[11] Critics of Drive Clean, including the Province's own consulting firm, the Eastern Research Group, have strongly recommended that financial assistance should be provided ^[12]. The repair cost limit is about to triple since the program's inception (from $200 to $450, and a proposed $600 RCL^[13]) while emissions standards have simultaneously become 23% more stringent leading to a greater percentage of vehicles that fail emissions tests. The social welfare effect is similar to that of a regressive tax, one imposed on drivers who cannot afford newer cars.^[14][15] As of 2006, some unofficial current estimates put the total cost of the program to Ontario motorists close to 2 billion dollars.^[16] The most recent verifiable figure, $1.1 billion (as of 2004), consists of some $435 million in Drive Clean test fees, and about $690 million for repairs to vehicles that failed.^[17] Costs for preliminary repairs to vehicles in order to qualify for Drive Clean tests have never been included in these figures, such as repair or replacement of corroded exhaust system components. Drive Clean test facilities are free to refuse to test any vehicle until such preliminary repairs are made.

The Ontario government also has a program to purchase and scrap old polluting cars called Car Heaven. This program is sponsored by General Motors and Exxon-Mobil among others. It is structured in a way which will cost taxpayers little, and acts as a small incentive for people to scrap older cars. This has the effect of boosting prices for remaining used cars by reducing supply, making it somewhat more expensive for low-income persons to drive in Ontario.

[edit] Impacts on air pollution

Drive Clean has had little real impact on air pollution in Ontario. 2005 was Toronto's worst year on record for smog with a total of 48 smog alert days^[18]. The Ontario Medical Association estimated in 2005 that total air pollution (from all sources) would cause some 5,800 deaths and 17,000 hospital admissions that year. It also estimated that the direct health care costs of air pollution in Ontario were about $507 million, and the total economic cost of air pollution to be about $7.8 billion.

In late 2004, Norm Sterling, who served as the Environment Minister in Progressive Conservative premier Mike Harris's cabinet, stated that Drive Clean had already had its greatest impact on air pollution and had served its purpose^[19]. Mr. Sterling is often referred to as the founder of Drive Clean. Drive Clean can only address a small fraction of the total automobile emissions problem, because all internal combustion vehicles burn fuels which ultimately pollute the air (including most so-called "alternative" fuels).

Greenpeace co-founder Robert Hunter (journalist) wrote in 1999 that Drive Clean "has turned out to be an agonizing bureaucratic nightmare that hits drivers with what is basically another tax and a huge hassle, while accomplishing -- in Environmental Commissioner Eva Ligeti's assessment -- 'minimal benefits.'"^[20]

Critics of Drive Clean, who included Hunter and many other environmentalists argue that a greater long-term impact on overall air quality would result from reinvesting the same provincial resources towards encouraging low-emitter technologies, some of which offer electric power as an alternative to 100% internal combustion propulsion^[21][22][23]. There has been call for the Ontario government to admit to Drive Clean's minimal impact, and to begin promoting low-emissions vehicles such as hybrid cars, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, zero-emission vehicles such as the ill-fated General Motors EV1, and personal transports like the Segway PT. On March 23, 2006, Ontario's McGuinty government doubled their former $1,000 ceiling sales tax rebate on hybrid cars up to a maximum of $2,000, but stopped short of making such vehicles PST-free.

Several politicians, including Norm Sterling and Howard Hampton have argued that diverting the same Provincial funds used for paying for Drive Clean towards improving existing public transit networks might have yielded a far greater overall environmental benefit. Proper funding may have also acted to reduce the well-documented disproportional fare increases seen in Toronto from the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) in recent years. The TTC has argued in the past that with riders covering more than 80 per cent of the cost of operating the TTC, it is by far the least-funded mass transit system in North America and one of the least-funded in the world.^[24]. Another lost opportunity to reduce smog was the quiet shut-down of the Hamilton Street Railway's all-electric Trolleybus routes in 1992^[25].

[edit] See also

• AirCare - a similar program in British Columbia

[edit] References

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1. ^ The Ontario Drive Clean program is corrupt by design
2. ^ Drive Clean Website
3. ^ Photo Radar May Return
4. ^ Clean air comes at a high price: The end of Drive Clean worries Ontario mechanics
5. ^ emission tests to be required for older vehicles now exempt
6. ^ Evaluation of Ontario Drive Clean Program
7. ^ Smoking out cash from car hobbyists
8. ^ Your car failed Drive Clean? Try, try, try again
9. ^ APA Probe -- Critical of Ontario's DriveClean Emissions Testing Program
10. ^ Auditor slams Drive Clean program
11. ^ Evaluation of Ontario Drive Clean Program
12. ^ Evaluation of Ontario Drive Clean Program
13. ^ Drive Clean Website
14. ^ Vehicle Emissions Testing: AirCare, Drive Clean, and the Potential of Inspection and Maintenance Programs in Canada
15. ^ Inequity in Ontario's Drive Clean Program
16. ^ Inequity in Ontario's Drive Clean Program
17. ^ A Billion Dollars Up In Smoke
18. ^ Smog - Toronto Public Health
19. ^ Drive Clean founder: put on the brakes
20. ^ Voting green? Vote Liberal
21. ^ Drive Clean founder: put on the brakes
22. ^ Inequity in Ontario's Drive Clean Program
23. ^ The Faulty Science of Drive Clean
24. ^ Transit Toronto - Newspaper Archive: TTC fares rise again April 1
25. ^ DEWIRED How Hamilton Came to Lose Their Electric Trolleybuses

[edit] External links

• Drive Clean Website
• Ontario Ministry of Environment
• Environment SWAT
• SMOKESCREEN: Exposing Drive Clean
• Vehicle Emissions Testing: AirCare, Drive Clean, and the Potential of Inspection and Maintenance Programs in Canada
• Checking up on smog-check: A Critique of Traditional Inspection and Maintenance Programs
• Drive Clean or Drive Less
• An Issue of Taxation
• Overkill in Drive Clean Suspension Practices
• New provincial environment vows meet criticism: Private businesses may profit more from Drive Clean than environment
• The failure of Environmental Planning in Ontario
• Toronto Star: Plug in to new hybrid concepts
• Pluginamerica.com
• CalCars and Plug-In Hybrids in the News