Wilson Gets Smog Bill Defying EPA : Pollution: Senate approves program overhaul that fails to meet requirement that car testing and repair operations be separated. But threat of penalties has been eased temporarily because of quake devastation.

SACRAMENTO — Risking a court fight with the Clinton Administration, the state Senate on Thursday sent Gov. Pete Wilson a major overhaul of California’s vehicle Smog Check program.

A bipartisan 26-5 vote sent the bill to Wilson, who has said he will sign it even though federal environmental officials say it falls short of bringing the smoggiest regions of California into compliance with federal law.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Jan. 7 that it intends to impose discretionary penalties in the form of highway funds withheld from California for failure to meet federal clean air laws.

But Mary Nichols, the EPA’s assistant administrator for smog issues, said Monday that devastation caused by the Northridge earthquake is likely to ease that threat for the time being.

Supporters and opponents of the bill agreed that the issue will probably move to the courthouse for a potentially long fight as the six-month confrontation between the state and federal governments escalates.

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Among other things, the proposed program would provide for high-tech roadside sensors that would identify heavily polluting vehicles. So-called gross emitters, the heaviest polluters, would be banned from the roads.

The bill also would require Smog Check technicians to undergo more stringent training, mandate testing of vehicles with the wheels spinning instead of the engine idling, create a statewide computer system to monitor the performance of Smog Check stations, and substantially toughen penalties for fraud.

Wilson favors the plan because it protects the jobs of mechanics at 9,000 Smog Check garages and service stations.

In the Legislature on Thursday, veteran clean air advocate Sen. Robert B. Presley (D-Riverside) unsuccessfully pleaded for additional time to try to reach an accord with the EPA. “It makes no sense to jam this thing through,” he said.

But the bill’s author, Sen. Newton R. Russell (R-Glendale), countered that the measure would satisfy the federal law. “We’ve got a program that has been beefed up, improved and will do the job,” he said.

Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), who led opposition to the Russell proposal, warned that the EPA has shown no signs of backing away from demands for tougher smog checks. He noted that the federal arsenal of sanctions also includes more stringent controls on industrial sources of pollution, if smog checks of vehicles are inadequate.

Bill Glenn, an EPA spokesman in San Francisco, said that the bill “doesn’t take us any closer to a solution of the Smog Check issue. We still want to sit down with the state and work this out.”

Critics charge that the current program, under which California cars are inspected once every two years, contains a built-in conflict of interest for Smog Check operators to deliberately flunk vehicles to get the repair business. Industry officials deny these charges.

The EPA and such organizations as the Sierra Club and American Lung Assn. favor separating testing from repairs. Under the EPA-favored plan, cars and trucks would be tested in a centralized network of inspection stations that would be prohibited from doing repairs.

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The environmental advocates argue that such a system would do a better job of cleaning the air and be faster, cheaper and more effective for motorists.

Russell, who seldom votes in favor of smog-control legislation, accused the federal government of bullying California and prohibiting the state from designing its own smog-fighting strategies.

“The federal EPA has said they know what is best for the states and, by golly, the state of California better not blunder through what (EPA) wants,” he said. He said the California bill proposed a better way.