Representative Will Guzzardi has introduced a bill in Illinois (United States) to ban any retrofits intended to deliberately increase smog emissions (including ‘coal rolling’/’rolling coal’ activities. The bill — HB3553, is an amendment to the Environmental Protection Act. It says: ‘no person shall retrofit any diesel-powered vehicle with any device, smoke stack, or other equipment that enhances the vehicle’s capacity to emit soot, smoke, or other particulate emissions, or shall purposely release significant quantities of soot, smoke, or other particulate emissions into the air and onto roadways and other vehicles while operating the vehicle’.
Truck smoke/smog contains toxic heavy metals, plus the lung cancer-causing soot. This is a serious threat to public health, and should be treated as such. Persons violating this law can be fined up to $5,000. I’m sure that some will complain this law is unfair, and squeal that the coal rollers have the right to do whatever they want with their vehicles. Soot causes lung cancer, and colossal amounts of smog can kill people in a matter of minutes. No one has the right to do that. If it is legal, then it should be banned. Anyone that deliberately harms other people like this deserves to be fined.
As for the efficacy of this law — Christopher DeMorro pointed out that it would be smarter to fine those who are caught rolling coal, rather than fining them just for their modifications (which are much harder to detect). It’s easier to catch them red-handed, and it makes a better case against them.
The rolling coal movement is the anti-environmental activists’ way of giving environmentalists and the EPA the finger.
