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I am a retired Environmental Engineer. I was the Environmental Supervisor at the Corvette Plant in Bowling Green, KY. I have run the following programs. Air, Water, Hazardous Waste, Storm water, PCBs, and asbestos. My main area of expertise was Air Permitting and compliance. There is a lot of misinformation about environmental regulations in this string of posts above.
1) It is illegal to modify any emission related equipment on any vehicle and drive it on any road.
2) It does not matter who modified the emissions equipment. If you drive it on a public road, you are violating the law.
3) Yes, the EPA will probably crack down on shops doing the modifications first. There is more bang for the buck there than going after the little guy driving one or two vehicles. If they fine one shop, they can get $250,000 to $2,000,000 in fines and actually collect the money. The EPA gets enough money in fine to make their time building a case worth it and stop many vehicles from driving on the road with illegal emissions equipment. One shop can delete a hundred plus vehicles per year. If the EPA comes after you they prevent one vehicle with deleted emissions driving on the street and most of us can never pay a $250,000 or $2,000,000 fine.
4) Modifying emission equipment is illegal in every state not just illegal at the Federal level. The way the laws work is that the Federal government passes a law. The state government can adopt the federal law or write their own law at least as strict or write a more strict law. The state can not write a more lenient law. If the state adopts the federal laws or writes their own equivalent or stricter laws, the state is allowed to have their own state environmental agency and police their own environmental regulations. If not then the EPA enforces the environmental regulations in the state. Almost every state has written their own environmental regulations and the EPA allows the states to run their own environmental agencies. A state has no right to declare a federal law to be invalid.
5) Yes, environmental regulations are just like the Marijuana laws. The state has the right to write their own laws. However, Marijuana is not legal in any state. This is a misconception. Marijuana is still illegal at the Federal level and can be enforced by Federal Marshals. Having and/or using Marijuana is a Federal violation that could result in a Federal drug felony. The Federal Government stated a few years back that they were not going to enforce the Marijuana regulations. This is when all the states started legalizing Marijuana (at the state level). This means Marijuana is still illegal but not enforced by either the Federal, State, or local governments where it has been legalized. The Federal government could decide to start enforcing the Marijuana laws at any time they want. However, this won't happen because the states make too much money by taxing Marijuana.
6) Emissions testing of vehicles is done where the air quality does not meet the minimum standard required by the Clean Air Acts of 1970 and 1990. Each state is to enforce the emissions control equipment functioning of all vehicles. The exhaust is sniffed and/or a visual inspection is performed to ensure the emissions equipment has not been removed or tampered with. Many states do not do a very good (none) visual inspection. This does not make modifying emissions equipment legal. It just means you probably won't get caught.
Modifying emissions equipment is illegal at both the Federal level (Federal Regulations) and State level (State Regulations).
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