Smog in California, SB 435

 Introduced in the Senate in late February, SB 435 targets bikes with
illegally modified exhaust systems and would go into effect in 2012 if
passed and signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, an avid motorcyclist.

The measure has won support from health and environmental groups that say
the move is critical to reducing the state's smog pollution but has angered
motorcycle-rights groups, dealers and manufacturers, which say it's bad for
business and an infringement of riders' freedoms.

Motorcycles account for 3.6% of registered vehicles in the state and make up
just 0.8% of vehicle-miles traveled, yet account for 10% of passenger
vehicles' smog-forming emissions, according to the California Air Resources
Board, which backs the measure. Although fuel-efficient bikes emit
significantly less carbon dioxide per mile, the ARB says they are, on
average, 14 times more polluting per mile when it comes to emissions of
oxides of nitrogen and hydrocarbons -- smog-forming pollutants that have
been shown to trigger asthma attacks and worsen respiratory and cardiac
illnesses.

I have been seeing this coming for years. Me they are doing it for 2
reasons. First to generate money for the State, secondly there are a lot of
people who do not like motorcycles. Especially bikes with loud pipes. This
is a way to get motorcycles off the road they do not like. There is no way
that 0.8% of the vehicles registered can make 10% of the smog. So it is a
rouge to cover up what they are really doing. Trying to remove motorcycles.

Buster

 

Well, go back and *read* the text you C&P'ed. CARB claims that
motorcycles
emit 10% of the smog produced by *passenger* vehicles, indicating that
one motorcycle produces 10 times as much smog as a car, but that says
*nothing* about big trucks and cow farts.

When the EPA first started talking about cleaning up emissions in two
stages, beginning in 2004, they published a list of emissions in TONS
per year that came from various types of engines, including
landscaping power tools and marine diesel engines, but diesel engines
used in big trucks were conspicuously absent from the list.

Combine the methane generated by dairy cattle at the rate of 7 pounds
per day per animal with the particulate matter expelled from trucks
and that explains why the sky in the Central Valley where I live is as
brown as the Los Angeles sky.

About 1776, a Spanish priest walked from San Francisco to a nearby
hilltop
and saw the snow-capped Sierra Nevada range shining brightly 150 miles
away.

Nowadays I can't see the Sierras at all on most days, and I'm only 20
miles away...

 




Well, go back and *read* the text you C&P'ed. CARB claims that
motorcycles
emit 10% of the smog produced by *passenger* vehicles, indicating that
one motorcycle produces 10 times as much smog as a car, but that says
*nothing* about big trucks and cow farts.

When the EPA first started talking about cleaning up emissions in two
stages, beginning in 2004, they published a list of emissions in TONS
per year that came from various types of engines, including
landscaping power tools and marine diesel engines, but diesel engines
used in big trucks were conspicuously absent from the list.

Combine the methane generated by dairy cattle at the rate of 7 pounds
per day per animal with the particulate matter expelled from trucks
and that explains why the sky in the Central Valley where I live is as
brown as the Los Angeles sky.

I too live in the Central Valley (Fresno).

About 1776, a Spanish priest walked from San Francisco to a nearby
hilltop
and saw the snow-capped Sierra Nevada range shining brightly 150 miles
away.

Nowadays I can't see the Sierras at all on most days, and I'm only 20
miles away...

I do not think it is the smog they are after. It is loud pipes they are
after. I understand the bill has passed the first house. But they removed
the smog test part. Leaving only non-stock pipes.

Buster