The progress of Leno’s Law for a while is a disappointing update.
The bill, officially known as SB 712, which would have created a 35-year rolling emissions exemption for older cars in California, has been officially killed in committee.
Backed by Jay Leno and Senator Shannon Grove, the common-sense legislation was seen as a beacon of hope for the state’s classic car community, but that hope has now been extinguished.
The original idea behind the bill was simple and reasonable. It proposed that cars 35 years or older should be exempt from California’s notoriously strict smog testing. Proponents argued that these are well-maintained, rarely driven collector cars, and exempting them would have a minimal impact on air quality.
This would have been a huge relief for owners of Radwood era cars from the ’80s and ’90s, who often face an expensive and frustrating battle to get their aging, pre-OBD2 emissions systems to pass the biannual test a much stricter requirement than in states like Massachusetts or New York, which exempt cars after 15 and 25 years, respectively.
Unfortunately, the bill was slowly watered down in the legislative process. Fearing a loophole that would allow people to drive old, polluting cars daily, lawmakers first added an amendment requiring the cars to have collector insurance.
Then, in a move that gutted the bill’s core purpose, a later amendment completely removed the 35-year rolling rule.
The final version would have only exempted cars made before 1981, leaving owners of more modern classics with no relief.
This weakened version of SB 712 was already a shadow of its original intent.
Despite the changes and early bipartisan support in the Senate Transportation Committee, the bill met its end in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
The committee refused to bring it to the full Senate for a vote, effectively shutting it down for good.
The failure of SB 712 is a major blow to California’s car collectors, who will now continue to face one of the toughest regulatory environments in the country for keeping their classics on the road.
!!
