Scheme to Fund Crushing of Over 15 Year Old Cars

[Johnson David-QA2282 <David.R.Johnson@domain.elided>]

OK, I'm going to try this one last time before I contact Richard for help.
I've mailed it twice over the last two days and it hasn't gone through.
This time I've tried to remove anything that might trigger the various traps
he has to protect us against junk postings.  My apologies if this turns out
to be a duplicate.

-----Original Message-----

Has anyone else seen this?  I haven't noticed it on the digest, so hopefully
I'm not repeating something that has already been gone through.  I'm
reporting from an article in "Auto Restorer" magazine (good rag, anyone else
sub$cribe to it?).  Applicable to US digesti only:

Senate bill 1766 is being introduced with a provision (section 803) for
federal funding of scrappage programs for vehicles more than 15 years old.
SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) is fighting this bill, and is
urging automotive enthusiasts and businesses to send letters to Senate
members and pass the word around to as many as possible.

The magazine points out that these programs would result in many interesting
late model cars being junked, along with other models serving as useful
sources of common parts.  In our case, this would mean it would become more
attractive to scrap cars such as the Milano and, not long from now, even
164's, along with Spiders, GTVs, Alfettas and so forth.  Just one more thing
that will make our cars scarcer and harder to find used parts for.

This despite the fact that many of us use these cars as daily drivers,
thereby saving the world from the pollution of new car manufacturing.  I was
going to ask why they never consider this in pollution legislation, but I
guess I know why - because the manufacturers lobby for car replacement
schemes rather than true pollution reduction.  The rationale for a scheme to
junk gross polluters immune from smog checks (pre-1968 in my area)  is
clear, but why junk cars like the Milano that in many areas have to pass
quite stringent emmisions tests?  In my county, any post-1981 car has to
pass a rolling road test, not just a tailpipe sniff.

So there it is.  Anyone have any further insight into this bill, or care to
comment?  Although this is not specifically aimed at Alfas, I'm sure it will
have some effect.  I think it is time to lobby for provisions to protect
significant older models from the crusher.

Dave J.
Island Lake, IL.
1964 2600 Sprint
1987 Milano Verde (will be daily driver when I sell my Chevy, and fix the
motor)

P.S. I've also found the following links which may be of interest.  You can
find the exact wording of the bill on the following website:

http://thomas.loc.gov/

Type in bill number S.1766 and you will find the whole thing.  You can
scroll down to section 803, which is where the scrapping program is
described.  Seems genuine as far as I can tell.  Summit Racing also has
something on their website about it.  A form letter for you to send to your
Senator, and a link to a site where you can look up who to send it to and
where if, like me, you don't pay much attention to poitics:

http://www.summitracing.com/news/index.htm

Apparently they were even emailing warnings about this to their customers
(they must not have my email, as I have ordered from them a few times).

--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided