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| Is it time again? This report is long overdue. A lot has happened during the summer and fall. Every time that I started my contribution to the �droppings� I would find another excuse to delay it. I have a lot of subjects to cover as well as a lot of articles to cover. So I�d better get with it. Jere decided that he had enough of the daily grind and has retired. His retirement has forced us to reconsider the size and makeup of this newsletter as well as the future of NJ-VORC. NJ-VORC will not die and Jere is not totally burned out. He will still be a key member of the NJ-VORC team as the editor of this publication as well as my alter ego. Unfortunately, Jere is not computer literate. Jere�s retirement causes some logistic, secretarial, and publication problems. The bottom line is that we will not be generating large, and most likely, unread mailings. We will concentrate upon moving into the 21st. century by providing most of our information via our new website www.geocities.com/njvorc/. I have asked for but never received comments from any of you. I don�t know how many of you are like Jere and don�t go near a personal computer. I don�t know which and how many of your clubs maintain a website. I don�t have any personal or club e-mail addresses. I need this information to keep in touch if we are going to inform you via the website. Now it�s time to cover the news. A1403 hasn�t appeared on the State Assembly�s RADARscope. Our lame duck Assembly Speaker made a lot of private gestures but didn�t consider us important enough to at least post the bill. I hope the new Assembly Speaker, who ever he or she will be, will be more considerate. I don�t even know if Assemblyman Greenwald will reintroduce the bill next year. I do know that I will continue to lobby for this important bill for all backyard mechanics young and old. I have not spent much time in the past on the vehicle scrapage issue. This was because influential State Administration insiders insured me that they were fully aware that vehicle scrapage wasn�t a cost effective form of pollution control. They knew, as I professed, that the �enhanced vehicle emissions test� would remove the vehicles. I am not so sure that the new Administration will do the same. I hope that our new State Administrators will seek professional advice prior to making the same errors as California. We are asked to conserve energy, water, and trees. We are asked to recycle newspapers, glass and metals. Why should we scrap motor vehicles where less than 20% of the vehicle is recyclable after it hits the crusher? This makes no sense. It makes more sense to recycle engine and drive train parts than it does to destroy them. Renewable fuels are back in the headlines. Ethanol? No Hydrogen is BMW�s choice. BMW is touring Europe with a fleet of hydrogen-fueled vehicles. I, as apparently most |
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