The Environmental Cancer

A lot of the information in this report is about a Colorado situation. But Envirotest is growing like cancer all over the country and in (British Columbia) Canada, as well. It operates in Connecticut, Illinois, Florida, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio, Tennessee, and Maryland. By the time you read this they might also be operating in your state. So it will pay you to pay attention.

That is the copy on a bumper sticker put out by a local Denver talk radio host. This guy investigated the clean air test that was foisted on Colorado drivers. But his investigation was far too limited and didn't even get into the good stuff, such as:

Envirotest, which holds contracts in a number of different states and even in British Columbia that allows it to rip off motorists, is a big example of the kind of company that uses the government, both to get started, and then to retain what it has stolen.

In 1988, the people who own Envirotest set up a fund to take advantage of new environmental legislation by purchasing companies that are poised for growth as the result of the legislation.

Envirotest begins by encouraging -- and even financing -- local environmental activists to push for more stringent clean air standards than are needed so it can bid to be the supplier of the services for which the need has thus been created.

In Pennsylvania, where legislators were getting ready to break Envirotest's $60 million dollar contract, the American Lung Association bought many full-page advertisements across the state supporting them. Of course, the $185,000 that Envirotest gave them between 1992 and 1995 had nothing to do with this support. They hire many influential people to be both open, and in the closet lobbyists. Among the people they hire are many who are known to have the ear of the governor, such as, in Colorado, Stealey & Associates (to push the legislature to approve the emission program that would increase the cost to each motorist by 250%).

Then, when the legislature bought it, hook, line, and sinker, made the law and solicited bids, they assembled a team that included Steven W. Farber (former chairman of former Colorado Governor Roy Romer's 1990 reelection campaign who was also a major Romer fund-raiser), former Lt. Governor Nancy Dick as its real estate consultant, and former state Democratic chairman Floyd Ciruli as its pollster -- and who knows how many more.

They won the multi-million dollar contract, even though they were the high bidder, and when that was questioned by a losing bidder, Dr. Patricia Nolan, then Colorado's state health director, said that they were more concerned with the quality of the program than with cost. In other words, money was no object. Then the quality was found to be so poor (Envirotest was hit with $436,200 in fines for 898 violations in waiting time limits and were forced to hire new staff) that legislators soon were looking for ways to abolish the program. So Envirotest fought back in a breathtaking first strike which has, so far, won the war.

An association of service station owners were pushing a ballot measure that would allow them to compete with Envirotest (the way it used to be with the old program that was working). Envirotest retaliated with their own ballot measure that would allow anyone buying a car to return it within three days for a full refund. This, of course, cancelled auto dealer associations' plans to give the service station owners' association $300,000 to help push their initiative.

And they don't hesitate to play the race card whenever they think it will work. One of the things that gave them an early advantage is the fact that the primary owner, Chester C. Davenport, is black, qualifying the company for everything that current federal regulations allow blacks under the usual "equal" opportunity programs that give blacks an unequal advantage. In 1991, they gobbled up a competitor by filing two lawsuits against them and suggesting to reporters that they were the victims of racism. They ended up owning the competitor.

Envirotest admitted in company documents that they in fact helped create the new emissions test through a contract with the EPA to test the technology. They also joined the EPA in defending a lawsuit brought by groups objecting to the new regulations and seeking to repeal them. In Pennsylvania in 1994, an Envirotest lobbyist sent a copy of a legislator's proposal to scale back their planned emissions program to an EPA staffer in Michigan -- who faxed back a memo -- to the lobbyist, not to the legislature, threatening to impose sanctions leading to the lapse of transportation plans and to the end of highway project funding. Pennsylvania state Senator Gerald LaValle, sponsor of the measure, said in a letter to EPA Administrator Carol Browner, "It appears to me that an extremely cozy relationship has been established between your agency and Envirotest." (There's no mention of what Browner's reply was. There usually isn't a reply when you question a bureaucrat --then you forget, and so does everybody else.)

And lest anyone wonder about the affect of foreign money on United States business, be assured that one of the first things Envirotest did was to borrow money from banks in Europe, just seven weeks after President Bush signed a massive environmental law that led, within two years, to an EPA requirement that 83 of the nation's smoggiest areas -- including Denver -- improve auto emissions testing. This, of course, raised questions about Envirotest's influence in having those regulations adopted. To my knowledge, those questions have been ignored -- as usual.

Of course, there's a good reason why Envirotest has such a cozy relationship with bureaucrat. Their CEO is a former bureaucrat himself. Most bureaucrats, when they leave the government, usually find ways to use what they've learned as a government employee to make millions. Davenport is no different. He is a former aide to Democratic Senator Alan Cranston of California, and was an assistant transportation secretary in the Carter administration. Friends he made there are probably very helpful in his environmental rip-off program.

Davenport is an excellent example of how people (usually liberals) use the government to make millions by hiring influence peddlers who are either current or former government employees. You think people go into government with the idea of helping people? They do -- but the people most of them want to help are themselves, to our money -- one way or another.

Davenport is a good example of the kind of entrepreneur who depends on liberal governmental actions to create opportunities for themselves, and who, once the opportunities are created, depend on government welfare, otherwise known as subsidies, to make millions at the expense of the citizen.

The liberals like to point to people like Davenport and try to make you believe all rich people are like him -- sucking at the teat of the U. S. taxpayer. But it doesn't work, since the largest number of new millionaires have done it without government help. It's the liberal millionaires who get rich on the backs of the people by doing the kinds of things Davenport has done. There isn't much we, as individuals can do about it once he is in place and has become powerful. But if we keep our eyes and ears open to catch other leeches like this before they get rich and powerful, maybe we can stop them. They prey on us on a regular basis and for the most part we don't even notice them.

Lets see here, hard-working, enterprising guy that got rich building his own business and hiring people; bad.
Liberal RAT getting rich stealing money from the public by forcing useless laws on unsuspecting citizens, even those who cannot afford it; good.

The Environmental Cancer

I thought for sure this article was about Al Hore's presidential run.

Envirotest admitted in company documents that they in fact helped create the new emissions test through a contract with the EPA to test the technology.

Gee, reminds me of the American Lung Association writing legislation that raises taxes on smokers and kicks back 10 or 15% to themselves. "Charities" are not our friends.

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