Anchorage Daily News

Anchorage air comes center stage tonight when the city Assembly considers extending the life of the vehicle emissions inspection program.

And if the crush of e-mails and telephone calls Assembly members say they are getting is any indication, the chambers air should be sizzling with give and take during a public hearing on the issue.

On the table: a proposed ordinance that would reverse an Assembly vote last year that set the end of 2009 for the program to go away. The current body -- with its majority of a political stripe much different from last year's -- appears poised to give the program a new lease on life, in one form or another.

The program hits Anchorage drivers with a fee of about $60 every other year to have their vehicle's emissions checked for pollutants. Vehicles violating pollution standards must be repaired -- and drivers spend $8.7 million a year on the tests and related fixes, according to a study done for the city.

Program foes last year argued that the I/M (inspection and maintenance) tests, which have been in place since the mid-1980s, accomplished what they set out to do: They cleaned up Anchorage air. For years, the city hasn't violated federal clean-air standards.

Those looking with skepticism at efforts this year to keep the program alive are picking up those same arguments. "I feel that it's run its course," said Assemblywoman Jennifer Johnston, who's leaning toward voting against the reinstatement. Other factors -- cold starts and the price of gas -- are going to affect the quality of air more than I/M testing, she said.

Should public comment run its course and the Assembly reach the point of debate tonight, the panel will have several details of the new ordinance to work out. Different versions of the proposal, for example, have exempted new vehicles from inspections for up to eight years, and some have suggested that vehicles 25 years old or older should be exempted. A recent version says that 1967 model year or older vehicles would be exempted.

"If we get rid of the I/M, we are choosing to make our air dirtier," said Assemblywoman Sheila Selkregg, who has consistently backed reinstatement of the program. Selkregg, Assemblyman Patrick Flynn and others argue that additional pollutants, such as benzene and particulate matter, could come to complicate the air quality picture in the future.

Selkregg said she will take off the table, for now, an ordinance accompanying the I/M proposal that would require noise and safety checks on vehicles. If the I/M program wins new life, she said she'll come back later with the other proposal.

Assembly members on both sides say comment from constituents has been heavy, but a read on the leanings of those comments depends who you talk to. Flynn, who was elected to the Assembly in April, says on a blog entry titled "Why I support I/M testing" that the issue "has generated the most correspondence from neighbors near and far" of his short tenure.

He said in an interview Monday that he's hearing "a pretty steady stream of folks in support of the program."

But Assemblywoman Debbie Ossiander, who counts herself among I/M skeptics, said most of the voices she's hearing are "people who are mad" that the program has come up again. "They don't see why (the decision to kill the program) is being revisited," she said.

Ossiander said she'll listen to what's said at tonight's hearing and could change her mind "if I hear something radically new."

Mayor Mark Begich said he's waiting to see details of what the Assembly ends up with before committing one way or another.

Assembly Chairman Matt Claman said the public-comment part of tonight's meeting will "stay open as long as people want to talk." He anticipates, however, that the Assembly will reach a decision.

Find Terry Carr online at adn.com/contact/tcarr or call 257-4582.

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