Just a few weeks ago I brought you word that more than a half dozen of California’s largest and most influential police, safety and transportation associations had serious issues with California’s “Cool Cars” law because of concerns about everything from tracking of GPS braceleted criminals, to the ability of those EZ Pass tollbooths to operate, to the functioning of cell phones in emergencies.
Those associations wrote letters to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) explaining their positions and imploring CARB to reconsider. The “Cool Cars” rules are set to be finalized on May 7, making the last ditch effort by these associations even more interesting. It now appears that CARB has taken the warning seriously, and will be amending the rules in some major way to address the concerns prior to the May 7 deadline.
According to a report by The Detroit News, CARB chairwoman, Mary Nichols, admitted that CARB may have not built as broad a coalition around the “Cool Cars” law as they should have, saying that many “don’t feel they were heard when the rule was developed.” Although she makes it sound like CARB has never been guilty of this sort of thing before, it’s not something new to the Board.
Estimates suggest that the “Cool Cars” law will initially add $111 to the cost of a vehicle, but then when more stringent rules go into effect in 2016, that extra cost will rise to $250 per vehicle. CARB has said that it would take 5 to 12 years for a car owner to pay that extra cost back in fuel savings.
No word yet on how, exactly, CARB will take the groups’ concerns and incorporate them into changes in the rules.
Source: Detroit News
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