Texas Spends $100M to Clear the Air

by Frank Williams

Published: February 11th, 2008

The Dallas Morning News reports the Lone Star State is spending $100m to get gas-guzzling, smog-spewing old cars off the road in the metro DFW and Houston areas. The program, which began taking applications last December, provides vouchers to low-income families who have cars that are at least 10 years old. The vouchers can be used as a down payment on a new or late-model used car ($3K voucher) or up to one-year-old hybrid ($3.5K) at dealers who participate in the "Air Check Texas" program. It's a pretty popular program, as you can imagine. Freeman Toyota has sold 80 cars to voucher holders so far, and Lone Star Chrysler-Plymouth-Jeep has 50 sales completed or pending, most of them used car sales. The program is expected to exhaust its funds for this fiscal year by summer, but there are already funds set aside for FY09. Justifiable environmental intervention or a greenwashed subsidy for local car dealers? We report, you kvetch.

Frank Williams

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4 of 13 comments

CupcakeF on Feb 12, 2008

As a resident of Texas, I have to say that people that drive cars old enough to participate in the program either A. Have a classic beauty that they drive around infrequently, or B. Drive the old cars because they don't have the money or credit to buy a new car (College Students, Impoverished, elderly). So the program really doesn't work. Unless you find a way to buy a car with food stamps.

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Armadamaster on Feb 12, 2008
AuricTech : February 11th, 2008 at 9:44 pm I see that the program’s logo refers to AirCheckTexas as a “repair and replacement assistance program.” That being the case, I wonder why the program (at least as described by the Dallas Morning News) doesn’t offer subsidies to overhaul older vehicles to bring them back into spec? I would think that repairing old, neglected vehicles to bring their emissions back to factory spec would be more environmentally sound, for two reasons. First, keeping an old car running well (with emissions at the levels the car had when it was new) eliminates the need to scrap the old car. Second, it also eliminates the need to expend resources in building a new car. You couldn't be more right, but we all know this isn't about the environment, as usual, it's all about the $$$. Not to mention nothing like promoting fiscal responsiblity with an income-challenged family by coaxing them into a new car loan they can't afford. My taxdollars hard at work as usual. This low income Texas family will continue gleefully smogging the environazis in their Prius to death in our 1989, 1992, and 1994 fullsize, RWD, V8 cars and truck regardless of how legislators attempt to lure us into to their buddy's new car dealership with my tax dollars into the foreseeable future.

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Jthorner on Feb 12, 2008

At least they are giving enough money for it to be useful. The $500 car scrap programs are a joke, because $500 does nothing to help get into a good car. $3000 is a serious bit of change which can cover 1/2 the cost of a good used 3 year old Taurus.

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Jvt on Mar 02, 2008
armadamaster : February 12th, 2008 at 7:43 am AuricTech : February 11th, 2008 at 9:44 pm I see that the program’s logo refers to AirCheckTexas as a “repair and replacement assistance program.” That being the case, I wonder why the program (at least as described by the Dallas Morning News) doesn’t offer subsidies to overhaul older vehicles to bring them back into spec? I would think that repairing old, neglected vehicles to bring their emissions back to factory spec would be more environmentally sound, for two reasons. First, keeping an old car running well (with emissions at the levels the car had when it was new) eliminates the need to scrap the old car. Second, it also eliminates the need to expend resources in building a new car. 1) Texas also has an income based program that provides up to $600 to repair an older vehicle that has failed an emissions test, that's been around for a couple of years now. 2) If you get the replacement voucher, the car you buy doesn't have to be "new". Late model used cars (2005 or newer) also qualify.

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