New Hampshire ends vehicle emissions testing contract, violating Clean Air Act

New Hampshire is officially out of compliance with the Clean Air Act.

Last year, state legislators passed a law to sunset mandatory car inspections on Jan. 31.

Although the state has not yet received a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency to end emissions testing, a vote by the Executive Council on Wednesday terminated the New Hampshire’s relationship with the company that provides testing equipment for the state’s car inspection program.

The Council rejected, in a 3-2 vote, a contract extension with Gordon-Darby Inc., the Kentucky-based company that sued New Hampshire to stop its new law disbanding mandatory car inspections. Councilors Joseph Kenney, John Stephen and David Wheeler voted down the contract.

“We have currently no state law here on the books for this program, and you’re coming to us asking for a contract for a program that doesn’t, by law, exist,” Stephen said at Wednesday’s emergency meeting. “I have a problem with that.”

A federal judge temporarily blocked the new law days before car inspections were set to end. Attorney General John Formella told councilors before the vote that the state could immediately look for a new vendor and try to argue that they were still complying with the court order, which instructed New Hampshire to take all necessary steps to continue its program while the lawsuit plays out.

New Hampshire’s air quality standards meet federal requirements, but Formella said the state would be out of compliance “the minute we don’t have an operable program.”

Until New Hampshire finds a new vendor or receives its waiver from the EPA, the penalty for not complying to the Clean Air Act is $55,000 per day and a maximum of $1.6 million per month, Formella said. The state would risk losing federal highway funding after 18 months. It could also open the state up to more lawsuits from special interest groups.

The EPA waiver could take 12-18 months, Formella said.

Gordon-Darby, which has been doing this work for New Hampshire since 2004, was paid roughly $4 million per year.

New Hampshire gave drivers an extended deadline of April 10 to get an inspection while the legal situation is ironed out.

Karen Liot Hill, the lone Democrat on the Council, joined Janet Stevens in voting to extend the contract.

“I think we owe it to the public to have an orderly transition, and that’s what I’m concerned with,” Liot Hill said. “I want to make the best decision that we can today for the public and for the consumers who are going to be mostly affected by this and make sure that, as we implement this elimination, that we do it as well as we can and at low cost and efficiently as we can.”

Some councilors blamed lawmakers for getting the state into foreseeable legal trouble and causing confusion for drivers. The state should’ve waited for the EPA waiver before eliminating inspections, Kenney said, instead of adding the new law into last year’s budget package at the last minute to “make their audience feel great about it.”

“We’ve put the cart in front of the horse, and what we’ve done is created, really, a mass confusion within the public,” Kenney said. “We passed a problem that now the public has to deal with, and I quite frankly don’t know what’s up or down, but the New Hampshire Legislature better get their act in gear and fix this.”

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