Meetings
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[Wade Cochran (Director of Enforcement and Safety, Vermont DMV)]: We're live.
[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Great. We are reconvening our afternoon meeting and welcoming representatives from the Department of Motor Vehicles to help us understand a little bit more about, requested changes in H six thirty two or program in h six thirty two, the DEC miscellaneous bill. Welcome.
[Wade Cochran (Director of Enforcement and Safety, Vermont DMV)]: Good afternoon, everyone. So Wade Cochran, director of enforcement and safety at motor vehicles. I was asked to come and speak on h six thirty two in the waiver process that Department of Motor Vehicles has in our AVIP, our inspection process. And just to update everyone, that waiver process has actually been discontinued. We no longer offer that. That was the effective date was February 9. But let me take you back and tell you a little bit of history and why that was basically taken away. So the history of it, the waiver was essentially put in process for low income Vermonters to help them afford repair, expensive repair fixes to their vehicles having to do with emissions. And in 2017 we had about an 18% failure rate, a lot of ins and the reason for that, a lot of inspection stations didn't know how to test or diagnose diagnose, I'm sorry, the vehicles, and didn't have a great understanding of the emissions. So around that time, we really put out, my investigators and inspection station folks put out an education campaign and started going around to these inspection stations, educating them proper ways. We also gave a great amount of education on the fact that most motor vehicle companies, most manufacturers have larger warranties on anything to do with emissions. So most vehicles have, what is it, like a three year 36,000 mile warranty, except for emissions. Some vehicles will go up to about 80,000 miles. So these expensive fixes a lot of times, catalytic converters, etcetera, were covered under they were covered under original manufacturer warranty. So if you take us to now, in 2026, we're actually at a 3.62% failure rate, which is considerably low now. And the reason that we so we've been working with ANR with admissions, and I believe they testified already. And we needed to come into compliance with our SIP, the state implementation plan. And to do that, to come in to compliance with that, we couldn't offer the waiver program. We had to discontinue the waiver program. If we did keep the waiver program, we would have to know folks' income to fall in, who do we help out, who do we not help. It was just, it was too much for us to be able to handle with the personnel we have and the program, what it all require. So like I said in February, this February, just one that looked at my calendar on the ninth, it officially came out of our AVEIB tablets, inspection tablets that inspection stations have, and we no longer offer that program. However, I'm not sure if ANR did mention and I can't speak a lot on it, but they do have, they have a repair. It's it's some type of I'm just trying to think. Basically, if if you made a certain income level, you can get assistance, state assistance on repairing your vehicle. And that's kind of the history of it and why we get away with it.
[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: So thank you for that. We are looking at that program that ANR has now. That's why we wanted to hear from you and understand more about why it was kind of underutilized until now. Can you speak a little bit more about the very dramatic I suppose it's an improvement in the failure rate. Is that because what what what's driving that down?
[Wade Cochran (Director of Enforcement and Safety, Vermont DMV)]: Sure. So I think a lot of that had to do with education. So we, like I mentioned, we really went out there and we educated the inspection stations. My team took a spent a great deal of time educating them on how to diagnose. And if they and if it was a true problem, possibly even getting the people the warranty help that was already covered under the them when they covered under the vehicle manufacturer when they purchased the vehicle.
[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: So is our are the emissions the same or or have emissions been improved? Do you see what I mean? Are we actually having the same amount of pollution go into the atmosphere and we just change the way we're rating it?
[Wade Cochran (Director of Enforcement and Safety, Vermont DMV)]: That would be an A and R question. I couldn't answer that.
[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah, okay.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Are you asking? Think along your lines, I think you're trying to ask was it an artificial failure rate or was it a true failure rate? I think with the trainee he's saying they weren't really truly failures. Am I correct there?
[Wade Cochran (Director of Enforcement and Safety, Vermont DMV)]: In some circumstances, that is correct. They were not true failures and some that were true failures. We were able to establish getting them, corrective measures through the warranty, their own vehicle warranty.
[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Okay. And if I could just say back what I think I heard you say, part of why we're discontinuing the waiver system is that we have significantly improved the failure rate, but also because in order to continue it, our state implementation program would require more of a detailed screening of who was actually eligible for the waiver.
[Wade Cochran (Director of Enforcement and Safety, Vermont DMV)]: That's correct, Yes.
[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Okay, thanks. Do members have further questions on this topic? I mean, interestingly and perhaps ironically, we're being asked to look at the criteria for eligibility for the assistance fund that ANR has, which is how we got stuck trying to understand more about what's happening now.
[Wade Cochran (Director of Enforcement and Safety, Vermont DMV)]: Understood. Yeah.
[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: So, okay, members, do you have further questions for Wade? And Wade, what I'm sorry, what's your last name?
[Wade Cochran (Director of Enforcement and Safety, Vermont DMV)]: It's Cochran. Cochran. Yeah. And I did include I I think Jordan sent over a you'll see the AVEP inspection graph. I asked him to send that over to you you folks. On the very bottom, you'll see the onboard diagnose diagnosis, which is the OBD inspections pass and fail. That kind of falls in line. That's where I got the 3.62.
[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Michael, do you have any questions for Wade?
[Michael Hoyt (Member)]: No. I don't. Actually,
[Christopher "Chris" Pritchard (Member)]: do you know how many waivers you issued during the time of the waiver program?
[Wade Cochran (Director of Enforcement and Safety, Vermont DMV)]: I can get that information for you. It was a little bit of a short timeline today to come on, so I gathered as much as I could quickly. But I can get you that.
[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah. Well, thank you. We appreciate you coming on short notice.
[Wade Cochran (Director of Enforcement and Safety, Vermont DMV)]: That's okay.
[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Further questions? Representative Pritchard.
[Christopher "Chris" Pritchard (Member)]: So you talked about the education. Were a lot of these failures just readiness codes that weren't set yet
[Wade Cochran (Director of Enforcement and Safety, Vermont DMV)]: or? I would have to speak my individual inspector, sir. I'm not sure. The way it was described by the captain when I spoke to him earlier, yes. But I would wanna I'd wanna take a deep dive into that.
[Christopher "Chris" Pritchard (Member)]: As part of the AFib, I mean, it has to there has to be so many readiness, you know, readiness monitors that are set. Absolutely. Yeah, and so on some of these vehicles, once you make the repair and you clear the memory, some of these cars have to be driven a day before readiness will be set.
[Wade Cochran (Director of Enforcement and Safety, Vermont DMV)]: Just experienced that, yes.
[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Right, thank you again for joining us.
[Wade Cochran (Director of Enforcement and Safety, Vermont DMV)]: Thank you, have a wonderful day.
[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Okay. Okay, members. We, have a few moving targets. We're gonna keep Michael's gonna keep working with the bottle bill folks, but we're gonna hear from the industry next week. So there's a little pause on that. And then on sixthirty two, I feel like we're moving on on things. Outstanding questions. Couple remain. And then on, the DAM safety emergency operations planning bill. Michael has some changes that Ela's been working on with him to bring back to us. So alright. Representative Austin?
[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: Tomorrow, Fish and Wildlife is coming in on some changes. Can you just, like
[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I think representative Pritchard sent them around.
[Christopher "Chris" Pritchard (Member)]: Yeah. I sent them out to everybody.
[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: Oh, you did? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Oh, I think only.
[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Little bit of a me. Yeah. Alright. Recently?