While the companies in the post below look forward with new technologies to improve the fuel efficiency and air-worthiness of their fleets, Texas is working on the tail end of the problem: dirty, old cars. To deal with possible non-attainment of EPA air quality standards, Texas launched AirCheckTexas, offering as much as $3,500 towards the purchase of a new car for those that qualify.In place since December, the program gets 600 calls a day, and has disbursed vouchers to 2,150 in the Dallas area alone. With $20,000,000 in annual funding, almost 7,000 of Texas's dirtiest cars could be retired each year. If cars that are over ten years old emit 10 to 30 times as much pollution as this article claims, AirCheckTexas could do much to attack the big back end of the problem, by simply leveraging the current state of technology. And maybe get some ugly cars off the road in the process.
