Hummm. I suggest some of you read the history of EPA before you claim it should be reigned in. Ask the people who have no other choice but to live in areas where they get cancer and their children are born dead because of greedy businesses that think only of the bottom line rather than its neighbors. Ask the people who turn their faucets on and it blows out vapors or fire rather than water. Any fisherman among you? Or runners? Or outdoor enthusiasts? Without EPA you would not able to enjoy clean air, water and land. Just food for thought.

 

I wholly concur as a fellow Coloradoan. In the 60s and 70s, Denver would suffer from smog events that rivaled L.A. The same air pollution was also starting to affect many of our mountain communities. Today we have multiples more vehicles on the road than we had then, yet our air is far cleaner. I think that a 60s vintage vehicle emits what 10 of today's vehicles emit.

I've seen countless threads on this very forum discussing riding through the beauty of my state. You should thank the EPA that you are still able to see the fantastic scenery in Colorado clearly today.

 

I"m not used to hearing anything supporting the EPA at all on this forum. Usually it's just a lot of crying about how their bike can't be loud or how they might have to ride a liquid cooled engine in the future.

 

The thread started about EPA regs and kind of went political as I whole heartily disagree with you as the EPA is way out of control but that's another thread in itself.

 

Have you ever had to deal with the EPA? Well, I have, and they put an entire industry out of business because of politics, not based on science. EPA started out as a good idea but is now just a politic entity influenced by PACs. They have forgotten their own science.

 

Pretty much mentioning EPA is political.

I'm curious, which regulations are out of control? Has the EPA been out of control for their full 40 years, or just out of control for the past 2-1/2 years?

 

And that industry that they put out of business is?

 

I agree with the two fellows up-board. I too remember when being outside anywhere in Los Angeles in the early 1970s meant your eyes would sting and water, no matter how used to it you were. When catalytic converters became mandatory for cars and trucks in about 1975 (per the EPA) that problem disappeared.

However, as far as motorcycles are concerned we do need to inject a little common sense. In terms of numbers, right now and prior to any EPA regulations, motorcycles accounted for a very insignificant amount of pollution compared to the USA's overall fleet of rolling stock. Now there are some parts of the world, for example China, where they haven't gotten around to banning 2-stroke motorcycle motors for street use and there's a gazillion of them running around. And the air pollution in their larger cities is horrible.

But we just had an interesting thing happen in California in 2010 concerning this issue. A California Senator sponsored a bill calling for mandatory bi-annual smog checks for motorcycles. But after vigorous debate on the Senate floor some common sense prevailed. The amount of money the state would spend on the program didn't pencil out with the amount of pollution it prevented.

So then the sponsoring Senator changed tact in mid-stream, re-worded the bill, and now it became a bill to prevent motorcycle owners from modifying their exhaust systems. In other words the exhaust system it came with stock was the exhaust system you had to run.

That would have really screwed the owners of new stock Harleys by basically making the stage one mods illegal. About this time it was figured out by opponents of the bill that this particular Senator had it in for motorcycles and specifically loud pipes. So both bills were really just noise prevention bills in disguise and had little or nothing to do with pollution. (BTW, California already has, and has had, a longtime law concerning decibels but it's rarely enforced on the street unless you're sprawled over the hood of a patrol car for something else and they are stacking charges, LOL.)

Again some common sense won out as it was argued how would the average street cop know stock pipes from aftermarket pipes? So the Senator reworded the bill a second time to say all motorcycle exhaust systems must carry the EPA approved stamp. And wanted the law to include all past, present, and future registered motorcycles. But that was deemed too onerous especially to owners of previously registered bikes.

So the bill was then re-worded a third time to include only motorcycles manufactured after 2011. And that failed to pass. So the Senator kept changing the bill by bumping up the year incrementally until it finally passed at 2013 and later. Supposedly this would give the aftermarket exhaust manufactures the time to design more free flowing pipes that still meet the EPA requirements. Some say the aftermarket exhaust manufactures will simply abandon California, but I doubt that as the California market is just too big.

But we still had one more ace in the hole. The Governor of California had to sign the bill to make it become law. And of course that Governor was Harley owner and rider Arnold Schwarzenegger. But much to everyone's chagrin he signed it anyway! An interesting aside was right around this time Arnold was popped for riding his Harley around (for years) without a motorcycle endorsement.

California has historically been a very motorcycle tolerant state compared with some other states It's very easy to register a home built or shop built bike, there are no annual inspections, no smog checks, and unless you make a spectacle of yourself the cops pretty much leave you alone on the street. But sometimes what happens here migrates east so I suppose this a cautionary tale.

On the other hand I'm sure after 2013 some enterprising, yet unscrupulous, folks will provide fake EPA stamped pipes just like the fake DOT helmets. And it still remains to be seen if the cops will even bother enforcing the new law.

I also hope you all took note I didn't mention any particular political party in the above. And I think we all need to do more of that or we're just playing their game. And I believe deep down we, all of us, know the majority of politicians passed the city or town level are out of touch, self serving, and certainly not deserving of our vitriolic support.

 

yuuuuupppp!!!

 

I think your implying since the current president has n
been in office. Tell me do you own a business and have to comply with there regs and pay lots of money to comply? As for which regs there is a whole other forum where I'm a moderator filled with small business owners who would gladly tell you.

This is not the place to discuss those but I don't want EPA exhaust on my bike nor do I want my motor to run so hot I don't even want to ride. BTW I didn't say all the regs were bad or out of control but there are lots that are. People here pay so much for electric bill now if the new EPA regs get approved a average electric bill here will triple. I do fish, hunt and was and still am involved in the fishing industry, dont even get me started what the new government regs have done to fisherman...