SEMA Take Action against EPA

We are once again being asked to support legislation in Congress that would protect our right to convert street cars into racecars—a practice that would be banned under the Clean Air Act if left unchecked.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2015 ruled that converting a vehicle designed for street use into a dedicated racecar—along with selling or buying and installing performance parts needed to race competitively—violated the Clean Air Act, essentially making it illegal to convert a street car to a racecar, fundamentally changing motorsports as we know it.

The motorsports community fought back, with industry leaders, racers, and several elected officials stepping up to protect racing with the Recognizing the Protection of Motorsports (RPM) Act of 2016—a bi-partisan piece of legislation that has once again been updated and re-introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Reps. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) and Raul Ruiz (D-CA) as H.R. 5434.

Passage of the bill would ensure that transforming motor vehicles into racecars used exclusively in competition would remain legal and not violate the Clean Air Act.

[It only takes a minute to send a letter to your elected Congressmen to voice support for the RPM Act of 2019 by using this form via SEMA’s website. NOTE: When we pledged our support by submitting the form, there was a slight technical glitch that forced us to wait a little longer than normal for the site to respond after hitting “Send Message.” We were then given a follow-up message requiring us to enter a phone number to complete the process even though there was no option initially to submit a phone number. We passed this information along to SEMA in hopes that the problem will be fixed.]

“SEMA looks forward to working with Congress to enact the RPM Act and make permanent the Clean Air Act’s original intention that race vehicle conversions are legal,” said Chris Kersting, SEMA president and CEO in this legislative update from SEMA. “We thank Representatives McHenry and Ruiz for introducing a bipartisan bill that will protect racing and the businesses that produce, install and sell the parts that enable racers to compete.”

According to the SEMA report, the RPM Act is well positioned to become law in 2020. The bill cleared legislative hurdles in the previous Congress, including passage by the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee as well as hearings in the House and Senate. The bipartisan RPM Act included five other original sponsors: Reps. Richard Hudson (R-NC), Kurt Schrader (D-OR), Bill Posey (R-FL), Gil Cisneros (D-CA) and Michael Burgess (R-TX).

H.R. 5434 is the House counterpart to the Senate’s version of the bill, S. 2602, which was introduced by Senators Richard Burr (R-NC) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) and currently has 28 bipartisan cosponsors, the SEMA story said.

We will pass along more updates as we receive them.

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