EPA BANS CAR PERFORMANCE MODIFICATIONS

in this week's news the feds dropped a bomb on who syrians iranians iraqis nope the bomb was dropped right here in the usa the victims companies that sell performance exhaust systems you heard that right yep war has been declared by whom you may ask by the epa the environmental protection agency the epa just slammed the owners of automotive performance group with a three million dollar fine for selling exhaust systems and components that defeat emission control systems apg is a company that owns several brands including premier performance rally sport direct jb automotive stage 3 motorsports ft 86 speed factory and suv speed this is the latest legal action in the ongoing war between the epa and companies selling performance parts for street driven cars and trucks in this particular case the epa presented some pretty compelling evidence according to them and as shown here there were more than 64 000 pieces of emission control delete items allegedly shipped to buyers as you can probably guessed that was a problem the result was a three million dollar fine which was levied after apg didn't admit to but didn't deny any of the allegations this isn't the first time the epa has gone after diesel performance or automotive aftermarket performance companies in fact it's happened several times in the last 10 or 11 years in february 2020 for example freedom performance was fined 7.05 million dollars for the same thing spartan diesel was hit with uh 4.1 million for about 5 000 separate violations of what was called the clean air act way back in 2018 which is now three years ago kt performance uh in florida allegedly sold over 2 800 delete products for diesels between 2013 and 2018 they were charged about 52 000 in change for fines fines were levied against several other companies including punched performance which is where all of this started another company called performance diesel diesel power products alligator diesel uh deviant race parts and innovative diesel air fish diesel and diesel works to name a few i'm sure there's probably others even my old employer magnaflow performance exhaust was hit with a six hundred and twelve thousand dollar fine a couple years ago and flowmaster had to pay up about two hundred and seventy thousand dollars for alleged violations and if you think this is happening only to diesel companies you'd be wrong apex integration was fined five thousand dollars in august of 2020. weisteck a famous ben's tuner was hit with about 8 500 in fines recently and even obx racing was hit with the fines of about 25 000 or so so essentially the epa is on the war path and the stakes couldn't be hired not just for us but for the companies that make these parts according to a study by epa's air enforcement division of the impact of known sales of defeat devices for certain diesel trucks between 2009 and 2020 they found that these devices would put 570 000 tons of pollution and 5 000 tons of particulate matter into the atmosphere over the lifetime of these trucks that's kind of a big deal in 2017 the utah physicians for a healthy environment filed what it claims was the first clean air act citizen suit against companies selling defeat devices in other words a company sued another company for dirtying the air there's a law that allows private citizens to file lawsuits to enforce admission standards their targets of the lawsuit was diesel brothers a company that rose to stardom and television you guys have probably heard the story in the news it was a year or two ago diesel brothers end up getting fined 850 000 bucks and now their website shows only apparel over land and truck accessories and no more performance parts and this fight has been going on for years sema has made efforts to find some middle ground with the epa but frankly they're really not accomplishing much and what inroads that they had made were effectively erased when the epa changed its interpretation of a previous clarification that was issued some 50 years ago literally the interpretation does not coincide with the notes from the committee that actually drafted the clean air act way back in 1970 these notes were uncovered by a lawyer who was commissioned by the 24 hours of lemons racing series and if you haven't heard of it you should google it these notes from that discussion from 1970 prove that the original authors of the clean air act had no intention of regulating race cars of any type this has been the understanding for nearly five decades however the epa appears to have now changed its interpretation of that law the epa says the proposed changes are only meant to clarify the rules but the proposed clarifications make it explicitly clear that street vehicles which have been modified for racing are not exempt from emission laws what we got to think about what that means essentially it means that any race car that started life as a street car would be required to run all of the factory emissions equipment if you turn it into a race car can you imagine that let me be even more clear what i'm saying is that under the new interpretation it essentially means that all race cars that use engines from production cars are now effectively illegal the epa is not even shy about this new distinction and if you read this quote existing regulations are already explicit and clear that the off-road exemption is not available for motor vehicles okay then who is it for it goes on to say despite this clarity manufacturers of after-market defeat devices from motor vehicles have falsely claimed that motor vehicles are eligible for the off-road exemption if we're going to use it for racing epa is saying no we're saying yes like those existing provisions the proposed language would going forward draw a clear line to prevent confusion about whether the off-road competition exemption is available for motor vehicles it should be noted that had this interpretation always been in place as the epa claims it was nascar would have been illegal at the time that the clean air act became law in 1970. basically nascar was still using production vehicles so nascar would have been illegal starting in 1970. and now today this new interpretation has far-reaching potential as the lemon's attorney pointed out this doesn't just mean a catalytic converter delete is a problem it means a whole month there are a whole bunch of other implications it could also be applied to every vehicle component that affects emissions which can include everything from camshafts to even the gas tank believe it or not and since nearly every race sanctioning body requires a fuel cell this would make all production based cars ineligible to race to be raced because they come with gas tanks and you can't modify that it all depends on how far the epa wants to take its interpretation of the law and for what we're seeing is they want to take it all away the biggest victims of this clarification would be the aftermarket companies that make these performance parts it's going to be carmageddon for them not only would catalytic converter delete kits be illegal but any part which affects the vehicle emission system could be considered illegal and that's open to broad interpretation now that would mean of course things like e85 kits gone no aftermarket supercharger kits no cobb access ports no speed density conversions no test pipes no downpipes on turbo cars not even cold air intake systems unless of course you have the carb executive order number so basically with their products made illegal many of these companies will simply go out of business because there's only really one alternative the only thing that these companies can do to stand a chance of survival is if and only if they have the necessary resources to recertify or certify all the parts with an authority like the california air resources board so you get that little eo number that's stamped on every part and has to be displayed under the hood of your car what that effectively means is that most of the hot rodding and tuner world specifically the small to mid-size companies which make up much of the aftermarket will simply be regulated out of business if the epa carries out its enforcement activities far enough the epa has been on a mission to clean up the air for decades i don't think that's a secret to anybody certainly certainly not to anybody lives in california i grew up in california here in the 1970s the sky was very brown anytime it got over 80 degrees i wheezed when i took a breath and our pe classes and grade school were cancelled many times because of smog alerts the air was brown here you look outside today it's quite different 50 years later it's much better but not perfect i get it and no way any irrational person can complain about wanting to have clean air for our children i get it and i agree with it but good grief there's got to be some middle ground so let me put this in clear plain english the feds don't want modified cars on the road at all california doesn't want them and just because your state may not be doing smog checks or where you live you're still in violation the federal law when you delete any emissions components they don't even want performance parts to be shipped here to the us from other countries they haven't found a way to stop that yet though they don't care about the companies that sell automotive performance parts nor do they care about what happens to those jobs as one politician said you should become a computer programmer okay the epa's new interpretation of the rules now includes tampering with emissions controls even on race cars it was always that way for street cars but now they're talking about that on race cars in the epa's eyes if the engine came from a streetcar and went into a race car it must still have the emissions controls that it left the factory with in california if you get popped by the cops and they tell you to pop the hood not only do you have to comply but you'll probably end up with a referee ticket which means your car goes to a special inspection station and when they're done with you that means putting every single stock part battle back on the car in 2035 production of internal combustion engines will end at general motors that includes diesels think about that for a moment 2035 that's 14 years away europe has said that internal combustion engines are on their last lap meaning that they're about to go extinct more than nine countries in a dozen cities or states throughout the world have announced what the media has called bans in the past and in the last few years norway will phase out conventional cars by 2025 followed by france and great britain in 2040 and 2050 respectively however although these politicians talk a good game none of these countries have actually put any laws into place nor have any new regulations been placed on the books so right now it's just talk but let's be honest we know it's coming it is coming that seems to be the time like 20 35 20 40. that's it the auto performance market effectively now will just continue to shrink from this point on until eventually it disappears and by that time we'll all be in electric cars anyway essentially we are living in the golden age of performance cars think about this kids born today will see the transition from internal combustion to electric vehicles and their kids will probably never drive a car with an internal combustion engine quite frankly i don't think politicians have thought this through evs take hours to charge with current technology building the infrastructure that would support fast charging for these cars would take decades especially in california where almost 40 million cars are on the road and the state of california can't even keep the electricity flowing when the winds start blowing here in southern california when it gets hot and the winds blow they shut the power off so the power lines don't catch on fire and fall on the ground and start a brush fire and with 40 million people in california imagine plugging in 30 million electric cars every day and so while sema holds on by a fingernail the simple fact of the matter is this the days of modifying cars with combustion engines are coming to an end and it's going to happen in our lifetime that's going to be it for this time everybody thanks for watching and if you like my content please don't forget to subscribe i'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Craig Lieberman

Views: 209,440

Rating: 4.8755536 out of 5

Keywords: EPA ruling, diesel brothers, smog your car, SEMA, exhaust systems illegal, straight pipes, Street racing, intersection takeovers, dodge, charger, challenger, Mustang

Id: bvuiut8iQIM

Length: 12min 10sec (730 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 16 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/basement-thug]

Am I the only one who noticed this? Cobb took down all the download links to anything past a Stage 1 tune for a late model wrx. They also took down their product pages for their older j pipes. Bren tuning has a disclaimer on his website. It's all adding up.

[u/Funny-Patient3360]

The videos of diesel trucks rolling coal makes a good point. I hate those things

[u/maxfraizer]

This is appalling. I hope we can find some middle ground soon. Motorsports is an American tradition and through common sense law as we should be able to modify while staying legal. Thanks for posting the video.

[u/Blackitaly89]

This is so crazy. SEMA is trying to fight it, link below to their site urging people to reach out to congress

https://www.sema.org/epa-news

[u/basement-thug]

One Grimmspeed Jpipe and boost control solenoid ordered.... I'm not gonna wait until they are all sold out and the price is waay higher or like Cobb did and discontinue their current (now old) j pipes only to have to pay $1k for the new "epa okay" one.