On Deaf Ears
ON DEAF EARS
An Interim Report On The Anti-Noise Rules
Progress report, of sorts, in re the Environmental Protection Agency and its proposed rules for motorcycle noise: We may survive this issue and we’ll surely be the wiser for the experience.
At this writing the jury, also known as the prosecuting attorney and the judge, is still out. The EPA published its final proposal, then held public hearings in various sections of the country. In our last installment, we reported the rules, and the fact that the hearings would take place before we could get the schedule in print. We urged all interested parties to send comments to the appropriate EPA address.
No word on how that went, i.e. how many people sent comments, whether public response was pro or con. Nor will we know if we had any effect until the final rules, as distinguished from the final proposal, are published. Several months from now, we’re told. The mills of the government grind slowly.
This chapter’s topic is the public hearing held in California.
First, there is an unconscious bias within the EPA in favor of that body’s proposals. Natural, under the circumstances, but still not something working for our side.
Item. A CW reader who sent in an early comment to the noise rules received a form letter in return. The letter thanked him for expressing “his concern about motorcycle noise.”
Of course he expressed nothing of the kind. His concern was to express opposition to federal regulations which would, by the EPA’s own statement, drive some motorcycle firms out of the U.S., drive some aftermarket companies out of business, raise the price of bikes and parts for us all, reduce the number and type of models on> the market and subject all bikers to more scrutiny by the various people who’d like nothing better than to help us enjoy ourselves less.
But such a slip of the pen is innocent, and so is the pen that approves the first slip, if we assume that the EPA simply figures all right-thinking people will favor any rules that make motorcycles quieter or less numerous.
More serious was an EPA/newspaper venture in Florida. The newspaper announcement of the EPA hearing there said that Florida people now had their chance to “come out and cheer” the EPA and its proposal, while the EPA expected “all the Hell’s Angels to complain about the rules.”
Why a joint venture? Because while the EPA spokeswoman was out of line in expressing expectations as to who would like the rules and who would object, the newspaper reporter who reports such a thing as straight news is a disgrace to his trade. A free press is supposed to reveal this sort of thing, not aid it.
Both parties acted in their own interests. The EPA workers are paid to develop new regulations, and to prove their work is needed and is in the public interest. So they lobby for their own work. Normal politics. The newspapers know the public gets all gushy inside at the mention of the Hell’s Angels, so they push that tired old button once again.
Never mind. The American Motorcyclist Association is mounting a documented attack on such tactics. Nothing will happen, but they’re on the right side, about which more later.
The hearing in California was more impressive and less partial than the publicity would lead one to expect.
The EPA reps know their jobs and their subject. The hearing had aspects of an investigation, in that each witness spoke and then was questioned by the legal and technical EPA people, all of whom had done their homework.
Who was there? One of our people, for one. He gave this magazine’s view, that noise is the bike’s worst enemy, that modified bikes are the chief culprits, and that the monstrous cost of the EPA’s program isn’t justified by the predicted benefits.
Several witnesses were ready to insist on the proposed rules at the least. These people were, as you’d guess, officials from anti-noise groups, and from various local and state law enforcement agencies, usually from the office whose job it is to reduce noise from motorcycles and all other sources.
By the numbers, the anti-rule forces carried the day. The only other member of the motorcycle press was CW contributor Lane Campbell, appearing for Motorcycle > Product News. Also speaking for the enthusiast were local clubs.
Most of all, the motorcycling public was represented by Gary Winn of the AMA. Impressive job. Winn had the facts and figures and used them to contradict the studies used by EPA in preparing the proposal. (Later, at the Washington, D.C. hearing, the AMA’s Director of Government Relations Ed Youngblood presented similar data. He said all the objections about motorcycle noise were drawn from surveys taken before the current crop of quiet bikes was on the market. He has yet to be disproved.)
Jerry Jardine, the* exhaust man, spoke. So did John Davidson, chairman of the board of Harley-Davidson. Harley, you may remember from last month, was the factory which the EPA said could simply draw on its parent corporation’s vast resources to come up with whatever money would be needed to meet the rules. H-D has since submitted written comments on the proposal, saying that the firm cannot meet the regulations without alterations equivalent to completely new and different models.
Well, so it went. We were told that the rules may be less strict than the proposal, but that the final rules cannot by law be more strict.
Also, the federal rules will wipe out any and all state rules, allowing the manufacturers and aftermarket people to meet only one set of laws. Made sense, in a way. State legislatures are places where the best way to make the front page is to propose a law outlawing the internal combustion engine, a bill that was actually submitted in one state, by the way.
But we also know that California has federal permission to have stricter emissions regulations than the federal government has, which cancels that benefit until proven otherwise.
We were told in so many words not to get our hopes up. But the EPA man who said that added that he didn’t like the idea of being the man who drove the last American motorcycle maker out of business.
Four predictions:
One, the final published noise regulations will be a bit less harsh than the final proposed regulations, just as the final proposal was less harsh than the initial proposal. See, it lets us know the government listens.
Two, some foreign makers will leave the U.S. market and those who remain will bring in fewer models at higher prices.
Three, we bikers are going to be faced with this sort of thing for the foreseeable future.
Four, they are not gonna kill motorcycling. Old proverb: That which doesn’t break us, makes us stronger.
Allan Girdler
