The EPA is seeking to ban the freedom of individuals within the USA to convert street cars into race cars.
WUWT reader Wolfpack987 writes:
Another example of government abuse of power, the EPA is seeking to remove more freedoms from American citizens in the name of the environment, by prohibiting the act of converting street cars into race cars. The sheer ridiculousness of this move to can be measured by how little of an impact it will have on the environment, given how little the number of cars converted into racecars per year.
Story:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a regulation to prohibit conversion of vehicles originally designed for on-road use into racecars. The regulation would also make the sale of certain products for use on such vehicles illegal. The proposed regulation was contained within a non-related proposed regulation entitled “Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Fuel Efficiency Standards for Medium- and Heavy-Duty Engines and Vehicles—Phase 2.”
The regulation would impact all vehicle types, including the sports cars, sedans and hatch-backs commonly converted strictly for use at the track. While the Clean Air Act prohibits certain modifications to motor vehicles, it is clear that vehicles built or modified for racing, and not used on the streets, are not the “motor vehicles” that Congress intended to regulate.
“This proposed regulation represents overreaching by the agency, runs contrary to the law and defies decades of racing activity where EPA has acknowledged and allowed conversion of vehicles,” said SEMA President and CEO Chris Kersting. “Congress did not intend the original Clean Air Act to extend to vehicles modified for racing and has re-enforced that intent on more than one occasion.”
SEMA submitted comments in opposition to the regulation and met with the EPA to confirm the agency’s intentions. The EPA indicated that the regulation would prohibit conversion of vehicles into racecars and make the sale of certain emissions-related parts for use on converted vehicles illegal. Working with other affected organizations, including those representing legions of professional and hobbyist racers and fans, SEMA will continue to oppose the regulation through the administrative process and will seek congressional support and judicial intervention as necessary.
The EPA has indicated it expects to publish final regulations by July 2016.
https://www.sema.org/news/2016/02/08/epa-seeks-to-prohibit-conversion-of-vehicles-into-racecars
This is truly insane, the amount of emissions produced by race cars on any given day is miniscule in comparison to the total amount of cars and emissions in the USA every day. They are making a ham-handed attempt at solving a non-existent problem.
![number-of-vehicles-in-the-united-states-since-1990[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/number-of-vehicles-in-the-united-states-since-19901.png?quality=75)
This is what happens when bureaucracy runs out of things to do, they up the ante, completely unaware of how ridiculous they look or how pointless the idea is.
Let’s face it…..were are finished as a nation…..Rome will burn again.
Very Nice …..!
Another reason we have to vote this time around:
http://36.media.tumblr.com/01d59c8ddfcd656bc23dd9550a66874b/tumblr_o1xhgpuhx31r53swio1_500.jpg
It is no surprise that Facebook bans Christians, anti-gay mariage, and conservatives while supporting Islamic terrorists. He has be an Obananite since day 1.
I just feel like, there’s no way you can tell me what do with a car that I bought. If I want to turn it into a 1000hp drag car, the EPA shouldn’t be able to tell me.
Reminds me of when we had the petrol crisis here in the UK. They wanted to ban all sorts of car based events but shut up when it was found the two biggest non essential users of fuel were fishermen driving to the fishing lakes and dog walkers taking their dogs to the walking grounds. I suspect in the US you will find it is backpackers who are the biggest fuel users.
NASCAR uses alcohol.
NASCAR also uses racing-quality gasoline.
“Sunoco provides racing gasoline for NASCAR’s three national series – the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, the NASCAR Nationwide Series and the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series – distributing gasoline to more than 500 racetracks in the United States.”
(Source: https://www.sunoco.com/sunoco-racing/race-fuels/ )
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Dear Mark W,
I just read your series of comments this morning on this thread contradicting or nit-picking at a bunch of commenters and it upset me, so I wrote to correct you. I’m sorry if you’re having a bad week or something, but, why be such a criticizer, here? If it isn’t an essential point, why not just encourage and affirm — or say nothing?
You are one of WUWT’s best commenters — and most loyal (since 2007, IIRC). And I consider you a hero for standing up for science truth to the point that you lost your job at a major U.S. laboratory (trumpeting that because you DESERVE recognition).
With admiration and hopes that whatever has you down will be in the rear-view mirror soon!
Janice
@ur momisugly Janice,
I don’t what fuel they are running thru their race engines, but when cornering the tires keep them on the track, the suspension tuners keep the tires gripping the track.
It’s all a dance.
Not to mention exhausting.
American cars corner? No! No, that cannot be true!
In time The EPA will take away our heating stoves and the heating of our homes can be only be heated by electricity. There will be no burning of anything that makes smoke. Forest fires will be outlawed. Lighting strikes will be contained. No more farting by humans or animals allowed. No more saving rainwater. No more mud puddles allowed. It’s all coming and much, much, much more.
Well I never wanted F1 to go to the states anyway. But EPA v’s Bernie Ecclestone.
At some point the American citizens will have had their fill and take the Rooster Cogburn approach.
“Give em a fair trial and a nice hanging.”
This is the government’s way of banning ANY modification to street cars. By banning race vehicles, then, there can be no tuners, headers, intakes, etc.. Their whiney base is crying about coal-rolling diesels that stomp the pedal when they pass their little Prius – and the gov’t is pandering to them, full tilt. Same way that they know they will NEVER ban guns in America … but they will attempt an end-round, by banning ammo, putting lead smelters out of business via the EPA, taxing the hell out of ammo, requiring electronics on guns, requiring classes for an LTC that nobody can afford ….
This is how the 21st century government operates. By CROOK – no other way. They know they can’t win on merit, so they will just cheat. It’s the progressive way! God help us if Sanders or Clinton gets in …
If they are so worried about pollution, they should go after these refinerys that are reporting billions in profits every year. There are millions of semi trucks out there that pollute, way more then a race car that is driven a few hours a month.
Just interjecting some pragmatic reality into this discussion. As someone with a wallet full of motorcycle road racing licenses, you’ve finally hit a topic on which I have some practical real-world experience.
The EPA knows full well that banning aftermarket performance modifications will have no effect whatsoever on emissions pollution or “green house gas” emissions. That’s not the target. The true target is noise pollution.
We, as racers, particularly amateur hobbyist racers – have an obligation to the racing community to be less offensive on the road. The fitting of after market performance parts, and especially after market performance exhaust parts, generates much higher noise levels. I call it music, but most of the public does not. If the parts we’re talking about were truly restricted to track use only there’d be no problem. They aren’t. People (and most notably non-racing people) fit these systems to their road going vehicles.
My street legal bikes wear the stock exhaust. My off road bikes have exhaust modifications to make them ~quieter~ as well as helping to stop spark or flame coming from the exhaust. If you want to take away the EPA’s clout on this issue, then your buddy’s ’69 Chevelle with the exhaust that can wake the dead being driven on public roads is part of the problem.
The Union of Concerned Scientists (including the dog that are members, Kenji excluded!) want to replace conventional fuels with biofuels and alternatives. This article in Biofuels Digest summarizes their goals: http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2016/02/04/half-the-oil-ucs-looks-at-driving-down-petroleum-usage-on-the-us-west-coast/
Unfortunately, just like wind and solar power, the damage to the environment from production of biofuels will be greater than any potential benefit these alternatives may provide. But the UCS will never see that dichotomy.
Ain’t no thing.
All you gotta do is stop this kind of fun.
Shouldn’t be hard.
It ain’t all bikinis, lots of trucks stuck in the muck, and people having fun.
@Baz
In the 20th century alone governments killed 262 million unarmed citizens. It didn’t happen in the US. Why? 2nd amendment.
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I can understand the wish to own a gun (by the way, I live in England), but the US does have a ‘gun problem’, What are you going to do about it?
You had 13,286 people killed by guns in 2015.
You have as many killed by guns, as by car accidents.
Almost 70% of homicide victims are by guns.
27 people were shot (and killed) in the US on Xmas day alone.
In 2015, there were 355 ‘mass shootings’.
In the past 47 years, guns have killed more people than have died fighting wars…in all American history.
Our (UK) death rate by guns is 0.2 (per 100,000). Yours is 10.2. Your rate is 25 times higher than other high-income countries.
The US is seen as a violent country. Guns are not protecting you, they are killing you. I’m not smart enough to know the solution, but as someone has has long admired your country (despite its obvious flaws, and its international meddling), you have a problem. It’s an extremely serious problem. All of the above may already be known to you. But the problem is so severe, that it’s worth repeating over and over. You (the people of the US) seem to be concerned about terrorism, Russia threat, North Korean ambitions, even natural incidents, yet you are killing each other and not coming up with a solution to tackle it.
The issue of guns has been dealt with further up-thread, but please examine the statistics on violent crime and suicide internationally. Dead felons are a positive, not a negative, effect. Suicide rates (some two-thirds of the US death rate from guns) vary extensively internationally (check out Japan–high suicide rates and even more restrictive gun laws than Britain).
Generally, this is a variant on the “guns as a public health issue” theme, which is transparently bogus. It is a civil rights issue, and all gun control advocates do not believe in self-defense.
My usual response to situations like this is the laconic: ‘Why don’t you just tell them to F**K OFF?!’
Do you think Trump admin would attempt this waste of taxpayer [time] and money? We have ourselves to blame for letting the house boy in the White House.
I drive a 2004 Ford Ranger converted into a NASA Rallysport racer and I don’t intend to lose it. So come at me EPA d-bags.
anthony watts is a lying POS. that is all.
[The source was SEMA, Mr. Watts didn’t lie about anything, but used a trusted source and indicated in the story:
https://www.sema.org/news/2016/02/08/epa-seeks-to-prohibit-conversion-of-vehicles-into-racecars
Your comment might be true, based on the Snopes story you reference http://www.snopes.com/epa-seeks-ban-racecar-conversions/ … but it’s also very juvenile the way you go about it. The WUWT story was believed accurate at the time of publication, as did SEMA. -mod]
I fear some rugged Texans with concealed carry permit won’t get us the ‘We, the people’ back.
Against those priests of new religions ‘EPA-ism’, ‘Gore-ism’ and ‘Warmism’ they alone have little chance.
I’m quite depressed.
I wouldn’t care if they made it illegal, I’d still do it.