The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency resumed sending out vehicle emissions test notices last month. That puts an additional requirement on certain drivers who want to renew their license plates after June 1.
The Illinois Secretary of State’s office suspended the required emissions tests last December because the IEPA stopped sending out notices to motorists, due to the state budget impasse.
At that time, the mailed notice was the only way an owner would know their car was due for an emissions test. Now, drivers can check their vehicle’s test status online through the IEPA website.
“Secretary White thought it only made sense if people weren’t gonna know when they were due to be testing,” Dave Druker, spokesman for the Secretary of State’s office, said. “They’d be coming to the facilities, and that would be the first time they’d find out, and we couldn’t renew the registration. So you’d be forcing people to come back the second time, and he didn’t want to do that.”
The emissions testing requirement applies to all vehicles registered in Cook, DuPage and Lake counties. It also applies to most of Kane, Kendall, McHenry and Will counties.
Druker says that’s because those areas have larger carbon footprints than others in the state.