I had this e-mail sent to me

a little voice to your rep might help



AB 2683 will be heard in committee on Monday, April 12. AB 2683 would repeal
the state's current rolling emissions test exemption for vehicles 30 years
old and older and would require the permanent testing of all 1976 and newer
model vehicles. If you can attend the hearing to oppose this bill, I'd sure
appreciate your support.

Here are the hearing details:

Date: Monday, April 12, 2004

Time: 1:30 p.m.

Place: Room 4202, State Capitol

Sacramento, California

Also, please take the time to contact your state Representative and Senator
and inform them that you are against this bill if it should come before them
in a vote. You can find the contact information for your state legislators
at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html

Do we know who is really behind this? It keeps coming up in the assembly but usually being proposed by different reps. This tells me it's some lobby group like the Sierra Club or Homo Sapiens for the Spotted Owl. I appreciate the efforts to keep our air and water clean but isn't this horse dead yet?

All should call, and write their legislature and the govenor, and comitee members about this bill. Be polite (I know its hard for me with this $#!@*&^ law, but be nice.) Explain you have a collector car, are an tax paying, voting hobbiest, that spends good money supporting local business with your car hobby, that you keep your car in good tune, and that original smog parts are becoming almost impossible to find for a 30 plus year old car.

Also inform your local favorite 914 or other car parts/repair shop. Let the owner know the reprocussions of you not having a collector car anymore (the owner may be out of bussiness) Offer to print up a flyer or something for the shop, so other customers can get on the bandwagon and stop this crap.

This Nazi type smog stuff comes up every year or so, and we have to beat it back thru letters and phone calls, else it will pass.

All those that think your pre 1975 cars are safe, think twice, this bill does not yet address your car, but there are groups, and state officials that would love to smog test even older cars, or charge them more smog impact fees, so you might be next. It is in everyones interest to stop this law, for if it passes, there will be more even stricter laws coming. If we all stop this one in its tracks, there is little chance of a stricter law being passed.

i have already written and called, and my 914's are all too old to be effected by this law (1972 is my newest) but I understand how Sacromento works, if we fight this fight today, we will not be fighting smog checks for 1966 cars next time.

So let's band together and give them hell (nicely of course)

dave

the person that started this bill is Sally Lieber, she represents the 22 nd district, Mt. View to San Jose area.

A real ding bat if you ask me, just check out her bibliography, her dumbest thing listed is:

"Sally and her husband David live in Old Mountain View, where they are proud to be active in neighborhood and community activities. They also serve as pet guardians for a politically astute black and white cat. '

Did this idea come from the cat she is guardian over? What a wacko!!!

dave

also mention that older, collector cars are driven little, and are very low contributors to overall emissions impact.

it is an election year. politcos will say and do almost anything to keep their jobs, and "let's clean the air for our children" seems a popular campaign.

i have to admire your innocence tho - if we stop this one in its tracks now, it only means that it will keep coming back, again and again. some of those proposals will be much more onerous and draconian. that's a tactic used by extremists to make you appear 'moderate' by accepting a 'compromise' position that's not as bad - when there is no reason to accept -any- position...

it -will- come back every year. we have to keep defeating it every time.

"the price of liberty is eternal vigilance ..."

I'm not really going to subscribe to the conspiracy theory, although I'd not be at all surprised if the Sierra Club doesn't have some hand in it. Lieber is a member.

Last year, the attempt to quash this was much more heavy-handed and was almost certainly not part of the "conspiracy". It was pushed by Dean Florez from the Bakersfield area, which was part of a whole raft of similar measures aimed at reducing smog in that area. It really is (still) very bad there, so I can't blame him. However, Florez and his staff weren't too good at constitutionality, and his attempt was something of a bad joke.

As far as I know, this is the third bill introduced to modify or kill the smog exemption since it came into being in 1998. It's also the most reasonable, and the one most likely to get passed. Unlike the two previous attempts, this one hasn't garnered nearly so much negative attention, probably because most of the "classic" community doesn't care about post '75 cars.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the Bureau of Automotive Repair (BAR) are behind it. They keep pitching it to legislators and every few years they get some dumb bunny to listen. They put it in a bill or attach it as a rider to another one.

A lot of it is payback for supporting another bill....they never pass or get out of committee, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't call write and or bitch......do it early and often.

I sent this twit an email and she didn't even lower herself to respond...this isn't the FIRST thread on the MT View Birkenstock wearing soccer mom.....

but what i thought was interesting was that i don't recall any discussion of the introduction of legislation to ban the open burning of agricultural waste. i used to drive through the Jan Joaquin Valley every week or two and i still have vivid memories of the I-5 corridor being filled with clouds of choking, eye-burning smoke from the fields of bean straw being cleared.

if they want to improve air quality in the San Joaquin Valley and Bakersfield area, they need look no further than their own back yard. oh wait - those people are in Florenz' district ...

Agriculture has a stronger lobby......

BUT even they had to give recently. Up until last year, you looked up agriculture in the CA Health and Saftey Code and it said exempt. They now need permits from the local control agencies, will soon need vapor recovery on the ag gas tanks, controls on the engines running pumps....yada yada yada.....

As to burns....they can't burn indescriminately....they have to burn DRY material, on a "burn day" that has meteorological conditions best suited for smoke dispursal....not a perfect science....but they DO provide us with food.....and urban encroachment has to be aware that just because ya move into those new condos next to a big farm, ya can't bitch about the farm....too much.

None the less you should contact your rep

I saw this sort of thing several years ago when the passed the helmet law (I think it is stupid to ride a motocycle without a helmet) I saw how it kept being presented and kept having it shut down. however they eventually lost but they held out for a number of years.

Who knows what will become a classic? How old does something need to be considered a classic? If something is still around after 30 years it has had to have had some love

Give the 76 some Love. Contact/e-mail your Rep.

Delay it another year.

I think I mentioned this before on this board... but when the Florez bill was rolling around in committee last year, I sent a nice e-mail to him tell his staff politely what I thought of the bill. I also clearly stated that I was not a member of their district, but that this bill was important enough to me that I was committed to funding his opponent in any upcoming election, should this bill go forward any further. .... this was enough to catch their attention and got a response from their office.... more than I got from other representatives outside my area, when I did not include the election funding threat.

Turns out that the big car collectors like Jay Leno and others end up putting pressure on these guys that has much more impact that me.... but I am happy to add my 2 cents.

I called Liebers office today, as the bill was under consideration. (phone 916 319-2022) and spoke with a nice person. I told the staff member I oppose her bill, and wish her to withdraw it. I told her I own collector cars, and that the smog laws for equipment make it near impossible for some cars to pass. I told her about my 1980 truimph, and how hard it is to get parts to make it pass, even if its tail pipe test is clean, I explained that Triumph stopped producing cars 24 years ago!

The nice staffer took my name and phone number, and told me she would let Lieber know of my opinion. I also stated I live North of the 22 nd district (Liebers district) thus I cannot vote for her, but come her re-election I would contribute money to whom ever opposes her in her district if she continues with pressing her smog bill #2683.

I urge any others that have not already done so to do simular, call and or write. I think the donation to an opposing canidiate idea, as was suggested on this post by a fellow 914'er was a great idea The staffer really perked up when I said that.

dave menche

In my email to her...which she ignored, I suggested that they fund the defunct smoking vehicle program that was defunded....this was where specially marked CHP vehicles cite visible smoke emitting clunkers and cite them under the Health and Safety Code.

This the same standard that "I" write tickets for...for stationary objects like factories, and off road vehicles like tractors. earthmoving equipment, trains and boats....

I also suggested that they start enforcing the laws on the books already....like INSURANCE....why do "I" have to have uninsured motorist insurance in a State that requires it????WTF?????

Get the lowlifes that run around w/o insurance and have poorly maintained vehicles off the road....clean the air AND lower my rates....Pull those Birkenstocks out yer buttcrack and think....ya twit.... :finger2:

I don't know what I can do for you guys way out here in MO....anyone need a smog pump, I won't be needing it :finger2:

Anyone hear what the results of the hearing were? I sent my state reps emails a month ago on this but never heard from them!