(This Toyota Camry started life as an-EPA ‘certified’ street-legal passenger car. Now, it is apparently a threat to the earth).

I still have no idea what to make of the New Hampshire primary, nor the Iowa caucuses, for that matter. How does Bernie administer a historic defeat to his opponent and gain 13 delegates to her 15?

Just as an observation, the traveling political circus that offers a reality-show candidate on the one hand and a real self-avowed Socialist leaves me with my mouth agape in wonder.

And not the good kind of wonder.

I couldn’t get started on the story this morning. I am at a point on the Stones saga that the tale will have to wait until I identify the municipal entity that abuts the NE8 property, since the housing development on the other side that could provide access looks like trouble. The last one- the crown jewel- the approach to the last Stone (SE9) is going to take either a full team effort for an overland assault, or the chartered of a power-boat and captain with a sense of adventure.

As you know, I have been telling bits of larger stories, mostly set somewhere else and far away as a means of avoidance. There is so much amazing stuff to ignore that it has become almost impossible.

Put aside the political nonsense for a moment if you will, but it might just explain why people are acting out in the voting booth. Everything is nuts. I can’t mention a single element of the government that isn’t doing something crazy. The VA? IRS? DoJ?

I don’t know what is going on at Agriculture, but I have my suspicions.

But this morning the lightning rod that vaults to the top of the bizarro-list is the EPA. No, I don’t want us to get all excited over the Supreme Court divided decision to defer enactment of the new rules on coal-fired power-plant emissions. There will be plenty of time for the lower appellate courts to sort out what is what on that, and whether the science was cooked to meet a political agenda in collusion with advocacy groups. I mean, really. The national power grid is kind of important to all of us who don’t want to freeze this winter.

But as I said, that will get an airing in court and some visibility in the process. The one that got me this morning may explain a good part of the appeal to many ordinary citizens of The Donald’s bombast and Bernie’s Burn. The Feds are out of control.

Buried in a nearly 629-page set of proposed rules, the EPA is in the process of prohibiting the conversion of passenger cars to racing machines. As a car guy, my jaw dropped when I heard it and needed to know more.

The alarming language is from a proposed set of “clarifications,” EPA issued as rules for comment last year. Here is the heart of the matter:

“Certified motor vehicles and motor vehicle engines and their emission control devices must remain in their certified configuration even if they are used solely for competition or if they become non-road vehicles or engines.” 80 Fed. Reg. 40138, 40565 (July 13, 2015).

Maybe the Millennials don’t have heart palpitations when they hear an old muscle-car roar, or thrill at the Indy 500 or NASCAR weekends. I do, and always will. Cars were the source of my Dad’s career, the well-being of his family, the life-blood of our city. They were the heart of my passion and life from the time I got my learner’s permit and my first speeding ticket. They are more American than apple pie, and part of the very warp and weft of life in these United States. Protests against this Rule only really bubbled up this week.

Before you grab pitchfork and race down to the local EPA region office, I did a little research and am more confused than ever. The publicity is coming from an organization whose ox is being gored- the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA), which produces after-market performance parts.

OK- so industry is concerned about another massive set of regulations that by law are not required to be approved by Congress under the provisions of the Clean Air Act. I am always suspicious of things like that, like Net Neutrality and the rest of the legislation-by-fiat way the Government has been operating for a generation. So I looked at the Federal Register in which the proposed Rule was contained: Environmental Protection Agency, 40 CFR Parts 9, 22, 85, et al.

The document is heavy enough to use as a door-stop. And contained within are at least a dozen contradictions that do not clarify anything, except to apparently make it illegal to make racing cars never intended to run on the street out of production cars.

The EPA takes 629 pages to do it, too. It sure seems like a declaration of war on NASCAR, which I understand a lot of people enjoy watching. It seems as if we now have an unaccountable government in constant need of finding comprehensive solutions to non-problems, and criminalizing us all in the process.

You wonder why people are so mad that they would vote for Trump or Bernie?

Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303