Testing Program

From the beginning, Maryland's new auto emission testing program has been plagued by public resentment, lack of advance information, faulty technical preparation and a rush-rush deadline mentality that allowed little room for correcting problems before it was imposed on state motorists.Gov. Parris N. Glendening has shown a commendable responsiveness to public concerns, and the admirable ability to compromise reasonably with legislative leadership, in crafting a new exhaust testing program that will alleviate many auto owner fears while still reducing air pollution in the Baltimore-Washington region.

About 200 angry motorists demonstrated in Annapolis yesterday against the state's expanded emissions tests, as 28 legislators got behind a measure that would overturn the controversial anti-smog program.The demonstrators, carrying placards and shouting slogans outside the State House, cheered when a group of lawmakers announced they would try to repeal the 1991 law authorizing the tougher tests."We made a mistake to trust the governor and his regulators," said Del. Martha S. Klima, a Baltimore County Republican.

Teamwork is a concept that the District 31 General Assembly delegation doesn't seem to talk about much.With the beginning of the 1995 legislative session less than a week away, the members say they have a number of ideas they hope to work on individually but little they want to do together.They don't even agree on what to do about the one issue that concerns all of them: a more stringent auto emissions testing program that was to begin Jan. 1.Democratic Sen. Phillip C. Jimeno, who believes the program costs motorists too much money and time said he will submit legislation that would stop the new program to allow the General Assembly to study it further and possibly revise it. Meanwhile, he said, the state would continue use the simpler, cheaper system.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court, after avoiding the drug testing controversy for five years, voted yesterday to rule for the first time on the constitutionality of random screening -- particularly, mandatory tests of junior and senior high school athletes.Drug tests for athletes have been imposed in many communities and at many colleges, especially in the years since 1986, when Len Bias, a University of Maryland basketball star who had just been chosen in the professional draft, died of a cocaine overdose in his room in College Park.

One of the most frequent questions I get is, "Where can I find good software for my children?" Or grandchildren, as is often the case when grandma and grandpa give the family a personal computer as a present.There are plenty of fine programs on the shelves for children of all ages, and many of them don't involve kicking, punching or shooting anyone on screen. Some are strictly entertainment. Some are overtly educational, and many fall into a genre known )) as "edutainment," meaning that they're mostly fun but wind up teaching the kids something.

Forty percent of the heavy diesel trucks tested so far in Maryland's new voluntary emissions-control program flunked, spewing smoke dirtier than an industry-recommended standard.But state Department of the Environment officials greeted the news cheerfully yesterday.That failure rate is very close to what they expected when the program for heavy-duty rigs began seven weeks ago, officials said at a press conference in West Friendship, held at a truck weigh station on Interstate 70.The 18-month, penalty-free "pilot program," they said, is supposed to encourage the owners of soot-belching vehicles to tune up their engines and clean up the air. The $160,000 effort is also intended to help the state decide in 1995 whether a mandatory testing program for heavy-duty trucks, defined as those weighing more than 8,500 pounds, is needed.

The same computerized language course that prepares CIA operatives to go undercover in non-English speaking countries could change the way children learn foreign languages in Harford County schools.The county's school system is the first to get a peek at the technology as 37 secondary and elementary school children "test" the computer program this summer for Analysas Corp., a Washington company.Swanson Middle School in Arlington, Va., is the only other school that plans to test the program.

An article in yesterday's editions of The Sun and The Evening Sun incorrectly named the company that runs Maryland's emissions testing stations. The firm that has run the program since its inception in 1984 was purchased in April and renamed Envirotest Technologies Inc.The Sun regrets the errors.ANNAPOLIS -- Complying with new federal clean-air standards has become such an expensive and lasting problem that Maryland officials said yesterday they are considering buying into the emissions-testing business.

An article in yesterday's editions of The Sun and The Evening Sun incorrectly named the company that runs Maryland's emissions testing stations. The firm that has run the program since its inception in 1984 was purchased in April and renamed Envirotest Technologies Inc.The Sun regrets the errors.ANNAPOLIS -- Complying with new federal clean air standards has become such an expensive and lasting problem that Maryland officials said yesterday they are considering buying into the emissions-testing business.

The state's plan to expand auto emissions testing to six largely rural Maryland counties makes the program more equitable, say several former county politicians who waged an unsuccessful battle eight years ago to exempt Carroll.But former Mount Airy Mayor Lewis C. Dixon, who joined the county commissioners in a suit against the state in 1984, said expanding the program "won't contribute to anything.""There are things we can do with our money and effort that would be much more helpful to the environment than auto emissions testing," said the retired mechanical engineer.