Emissions Press Conference 10/23/08 - Part 1 of 3

Good afternoon, everybody’s all set? Attorney General Martha Coakley, to my left is the Commissioner of the department of Environmental Protection Laurie Burt, and to my right is John Morrissey. He’s the manager of a MAC, which is a Motorist Assistance Center, where we are now, and I want to – I’m going to tell you a little about the two suits that we filed today, and then turn the microphone over to Commissioner Burt, and then Mr. Morrissey is going to show us a little bit about how the inspection really actually works. Just by way of background, Massachusetts is currently failing to meet federal health-based air quality standards for ozone. The state, therefore, has adopted the Emissions Inspection Program as part of a comprehensive statewide plan to address our air quality problems in Massachusetts. Pursuant to this, Massachusetts requires that all motor vehicle inspections include an emissions test, to make sure that the cars that have that sticker are in compliance with Massachusetts law. Any car built after 1996, or in 1996 can be tested by an onboard – has an onboard diagnostic system that can be tested by something that looks like this – the O.B.D. test allows the tester to see if it passes inspection to put this into the dashboard, basically, and will talk to the computer in the car which then can hook up to the computer here and determine whether or not the car is in compliance. In two lawsuits filed today, the Commonwealth alleges that two inspection stations in Massachusetts, and their inspectors, conducted fraudulent emission inspections, and ironically, because the testing is now so sophisticated and the technology is so easy it was a relatively easy way to avoid the law, so we allege. That is, a car that had passed inspection – had failed inspection, or was deemed to not be able to pass inspection would be bypassed, and in fact a car that they knew could pass the test, in other words they cheated, by using a car compliant to get a score for the non-compliant car, and the owner of that vehicle, by making a payment for the inspection sticker, could then be back out on the road even though his own – his or her own vehicle had failed. The inspections that we believe violated the law are called “clean scanning,” and in the lawsuits filed today we allege that since December of 2006, Hillside Jaguar Inc., doing business as Hillside Service Center in Somerville, and the two emissions inspectors working there, conducted over – approximately or over 208 such clean scans, the illegal testing that we allege in the suits. In the second lawsuit filed today, we allege that since December of 2006, Dorchester Auto Service Inc., and their emissions inspector, conducted at least 72 such illegal scans. In 2006, during an audit of these onboard diagnostic or O.B.D. tests, Mass. Department of Environmental Protection detected discrepancies in the vehicle information that they received, that shouldn’t have really changed between tests, for many of the vehicles that were inspected. The Mass. Department of Environmental Protection along with the Registry of Motor Vehicles conducted an investigation, and determined that many of the discrepancies were a result of these clean scans. In addition, the Registry of Motor Vehicles had received numerous tips from motorists that some inspection stations and inspectors would conduct the clean scans for cars that had already failed an inspection, or that they knew would fail if there was an additional fee involved. In particular, for instance, the lawsuit alleges that in one of the stations there was a code that an individual could use if he or she were coming in to look to bypass the legitimate inspection, and look for one of the clean scans. He would indicate somehow, or ask for, “Joe the Fish,” and that was a clue we believe, we allege in these lawsuits, indicated the car was not expected to pass. A clean scan would be done, a certificate would be admitted – emitted, even though the vehicle had not passed inspection. In these suits, we are seeking an order from the court that would prohibit these defendants from conducting future inspections. We seek civil penalties under the Clean Air Act, which provides for up to $25,000 for each violation, as well as under Massachusetts law Chapter 93A which provides for up to $5,000 for each violation. The Mass. Department of Environmental Protection, with whom we have worked on these