98SS- If you're referring to the article by the Drive, I disagree totally with their approach. This shouldn't be taken lightly. Any situation like the rights of the masses of human beings is put into the hands of a few it's likely it won't benefit the masses. Yes SEMA is behind in fighting this but the EPA's intention is not to shut everything down right now... Their intention is to clarify "what was said many years ago" so that they are in a position to have clear authority to regulate it at any given moment. That's easily translated to "we totally intend to regulate all this at a future date, but for now we're going to give it to you softly so it's easy to swallow. Once the poison is ingested we will then watch it shut you down." Did you know a snake can memorize a bird by staring at it as it slowly and patiently creeps up, and as the bird still has a false sense of safety, out of nowhere the snake snatches up the bird and swallows it alive. That sort of tactic takes place everywhere when a group or individual has a long term agenda to accomplish what they want.
Luckily SEMA and other folks/ groups are all over this. The petition everyone is signing is only a small yet important part. Still I would hope the whole issue would continue to gain public awareness. We all carry some of the weight and responsibility to help spread the word.
A quote from the SEMA newsletter I received today...
said SEMA President and CEO Chris Kersting- “Despite EPA’s statements that the agency does not intend to enforce the law against race car owners, the agency is, in fact, writing new law into the regulations. As a result, if this proposal is finalized, the racing community and parts makers would forevermore be operating outside of that law and could be targeted for enforcement at a future date. We don’t consider it an overreaction to try to prevent this new interpretation from becoming law.”
They say now they won't enforce it, but if it all passes they can legally at any time do so, in 10 years or even "next week". It doesn't matter to them, with this power they can shut down our hobby as we know it at any given moment.
Here's the
full article from SEMA...
Again, agreed that they likely won't put pressure on us as individuals, that's too large a task to try to regulate. But what happens to the individual when they force race tracks and sanctions like SCCA to comply- forcing
them to put pressure on the individual so the EPA doesn't have to deal with it on that level- everyone else will do the EPA's job for them. Realistically there's no way this will be constrained to only full race cars. To avoid fines and such, race tracks will want to cover their butts, and to remove all gray area I foresee that they will at some point have to turn away street cars that aren't compliant too. Emissions equipment has been removed from cars since the late 1960s so this isn't just for late model computer controlled cars. This will affect near EVERYONE in the hobby in some way.
Sign the petition, write your governor, write the president, write the EPA, organize a group of picketers at your next local race and take photos to share on social media and get the news media involved to come down and put it on the 6:00 news. There's lots we can do outside of just signing the petition. All we need to do is help the public become aware of the situation. Nobody, including the EPA wants negative publicity and opposition (open adult like opposition, not riots and plundering
) and as far as I recall we live in a country that supports "We the people..." rather than "we the government agency decide what you can and can't do for a hobby". If we make enough stink they will be forced to comply with our desires.