Several provisions of comprehensive transportation legislation in Ohio take effect June 30, including relaxed emission requirements and an extension of the current gas tax rebate for retailers. Other provisions covering maintenance requirements for replica vehicles take effect in late December.
Currently, seven counties in Northeast Ohio require millions of registered cars to undergo emissions checks every other year. However, starting at the end of June, the new law will allow these car owners to self-certify their car meets emissions standards through an attestation form, according to an analysis of the law by the Ohio Legislative Service Commission, housed within the state legislature.
If the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approves the completed form, car owners will receive an alternative emissions certificate.
The relaxed emission requirements could impact local repair shops that would have had to make fixes to cars that failed the counties’ emissions tests, SEMA State Government Affairs Director Christian Robinson told Autobody News.
“If you're simply looking at the consumer to self-certify, you're potentially opening yourself up to people that are self-certifying when they know in the back of their heads that they shouldn't,” he said.
Vehicles that fail emissions test often generate a directive from state governments stating the vehicle must be repaired. “Those repairs are done, by and large, in independent facilities,” Robinson said.
In addition to relaxing emission requirements, the new law extends through 2027 the state’s 1% gas tax refund rate that has been in place since 2008. Motor fuel dealers that properly file and pay monthly fuel excise taxes may deduct from the payment the tax otherwise due on 1% of the fuel the dealer received, minus 0.5% of the fuel sold to retail dealers, according to the bill analysis.
Underlying Ohio statute calls for a 3% refund, but each of the last nine transportation appropriation acts has kept the reduced refund rate in place. The refund is to account for evaporation and shrinkage.
“We've seen in a lot of states that as cars become more fuel efficient, you're seeing, depending on where you live, more people purchasing hybrids or plug-in hybrids or electric vehicles, that they are no longer reliant on gas stations to refuel their vehicle, recharge their vehicle,” Robinson said. “That's lost revenue for the state for the gas tax, which is used to improve the state's infrastructure and repair roads.”
States are having to find new ways to compensate for lost would-be gas tax revenue brought about by the growth of EV sales, Robinson noted.
The continuation of the lower refund rate for fuel evaporation and shrinkage may fit into that basket.
State governments are “finding that their revenues are going down, and they've got to make up for it,” Robinson said.
Finally, the new Ohio transportation law softens maintenance requirements for replica vehicles.
Provisions exempt replicas in Ohio from standard vehicle maintenance requirements for brake lights, emissions standards, noise control and fuel usage, assuming those standards weren't in place in the year of manufacture that the vehicle replicates. However, in contrast with the new emission and motor fuel refund regulations, which take effect June 30, the replica provisions activate Dec. 27.
Specifically, the law spares titled replica motor vehicles from the general state provision that cars must have stop lights if they replicate vehicles not originally manufactured with stop lights; emissions, noise control and fuel usage provisions enacted after the manufacture year of the car that the vehicle replicates, according to the law’s analysis.
The replica provisions comprehensively spare replica vehicle owners from any legal violations based on modern-day car laws. People can’t be banned from owning or driving a replica that doesn’t comply with an equipment requirement adopted in a year after the year of manufacture the car replicates, according to the law’s analysis.
However, to properly register the replica, the owner must complete an affidavit stating the car will only be used for certain special events and to drive to and from maintenance locations, the analysis states.
SEMA has been pushing for the passage of such provisions in Ohio for at least the last four years, Robinson noted.
“These are special vehicles,” he said. “You don't see many people heading to Target or Walmart in a ‘60s era Cobra. They're taking them to Cars & Coffee, for maintenance, or to car shows or parades. But they're classic pieces of Americana and a way to honor Ohio and America's car culture.”
Republican Rep. Brian Stewart introduced the legislation, which was enacted in March.
Brian Bradley