Although that car from Fauquier or Clarke or Spotsylvania counties stuck in rush hour traffic may look like every other car in Northern Virginia, it differs in one crucial respect. Unlike cars registered in Northern Virginia, cars registered outside the region do not have to submit to emissions tests.
The tests are designed to make sure that cars in the Washington region are not polluting more than they should. They are required every two years for cars registered in Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William and Stafford counties and in the cities of Alexandria, Falls Church, Fairfax, Manassas and Manassas Park.
As the region struggles to reduce its air pollution to levels acceptable by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, local officials have focused their efforts on cars because they are the single biggest source of air pollution in the area.
But counties that are further away from the District have cleaner air and are therefore not required to hold emissions inspections. And although the law states that emissions inspections are also required for cars that "operate primarily" in the region but are not registered here, there is no way to force commuters from distant counties to comply, according to Michael Thompson, the inspection maintenance program manager for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, which administers the tests.
"The tricky part is how do you identify the vehicles that operate primarily in this area?" he asked.
The stakes are high. If the region does not substantially reduce air pollution by 2005, it will lose the ability to fund road projects, which will inconvenience commuters, wherever they may come from.
UP TO 18 PERCENT of all the cars on Northern Virginia roads come from other parts of the state, estimated Jim Sydnor, the director of the office of air quality planning at the DEQ.
The DEQ inspects about 650,000 vehicles a year. Of those, about 9 percent will fail the inspection and have to be repaired, according to Thompson.
But not all vehicles are held to the same standard. Older models that rolled off the assembly line before the advent of modern pollution cutting technology can get away with more emissions than a newer car.
The tests may be responsible for a drop in the level of carbon monoxide in the air during the 1990s.
"We'd like to think so," Thompson said.
As promising as that is, environmentalists said, emissions tests ought to be required for all cars in order to more effectively deal with pollution. Limiting the tests to seriously polluted areas ignores the fact that air pollution is a global problem, they said.
"To me, everybody's car ought to be running clean," said Paul Hughes, president of the Fairfax County Coalition for Smarter Growth. "It shouldn't depend on whether you happen to live in a severe ozone nonattainment area."
"If you apply those same principles, you only do safety inspections in areas where there are a lot of accidents," he added. "Does that make sense?"
"It's generally a positive thing if an inspection program could bring about a reduction" in air pollution, said Pamela Irwin, the clean air coordinator for the Sierra Club's Virginia Chapter. "We don't think it's an overly burdensome thing to ask."
The programs have worked well in Northern Virginia, she added. "It could work all over the state."
But requiring that all cars in the state undergo the tests does not make sense to Robert Chase, president of the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance, a group that calls for road improvements in the region.
"Would it make a difference? Yes. Would it make a significant difference? Probably not," he said.
Chase added that cleaning up diesel engines and limiting pollution that is blown over from industries in the Midwest would have more effect in reducing pollution.
CRACKING DOWN on distant commuters whose cars aren't tested may become easier after a bill patroned by Del. Joe May (R-33) and passed during the last session is implemented next year.
The legislation allows the Department of Environmental Quality to set up a remote sensing program that could identify major polluters. A sensor set up by the side of the road would shoot an infrared beam into the car's tail pipe while a camera snapped a photo of the license plate. If a car routinely exceeds the pollution limit, the DEQ would then mail a notice to its owner.
A pilot program is already underway. The full program will probably not be in place for another year, according to May.
"Part of the argument here is that 10 percent of the cars create about 50 percent of the emissions," he said. "Those which are gross polluters could be identified and sent to an inspection station for a once-over, if you will."
Although the program will first target high polluters, it could then be expanded to target cars registered outside Northern Virginia which spend a lot of time in the region without undergoing an emissions test.
"At this point it applies only to cars registered in Northern Virginia," said May. "I'd like to do this in an orderly way."
May said he shepherded the bill through the legislature out of a concern that a federal agency, the EPA, might impose regulations on Virginia if the air quality does not improve by 2005.
"I would much rather that Virginia have the opportunity to establish its own destiny than have the EPA do it," he said.