A bill that would have allowed the State Police to establish an electronic surveillance system to track vehicle inspections has now been unanimously rejected by Augusta lawmakers.
Sponsored by Sen. Brad Farrin (R-Somerset), LD 566 would have then required all mechanics throughout the state to make use of this new system.
For the purposes of this bill, an “electronic inspection program” was defined as a program designated by the Chief of the State Police “that uses electronically generated data as part of an inspection and permits the creation and exchange of an electronic record for maintaining inspection information.”
This proposal also would have raised the cap on vehicle inspection costs to $20, just under double the current cap of $12.50.
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Carried over from the previous legislative session after receiving a public hearing and being placed on the schedule for multiple work sessions, LD 566 was unanimously rejected by the Transportation Committee earlier this month.
Following the release of their official Ought Not to Pass Report, LD 566 was placed in the legislative files as a dead bill.
A very similar bill, LD 667, was unanimously voted Ought Not to Pass by the Transportation Committee in April of last year.
The only major difference between these two proposals was the method by which inspection fees would be increased, as both contained essentially identical versions of the electronic inspection system.
While LD 566 sought to implement a flat fee increase, LD 667 would have tied it to the state’s minimum wage, allowing the cost to be no greater than 2.5 times the minimum per hour rate of pay, which would have equated to $36.63 at the time.
