Nope, there isn't.

The DEP (as I understand it, I never worked in air quality) is limited to issuing/approving the the emissions standards that have to be met. The means to meet them were left up to PENNDOT, subject to EPA approval.

Here in Cincinnati we had (note the past tense) an emissions test that was way more complex than PA's. Every 2 years they put your car up on a dynanometer (along with several other tests including one specifically for cap performance) in a specialized testing facility run by a state contractor. The whole thing took about 10 minutes, with (in my station) 4 lines that rarely had more than 2-3 cars in them.

The cars needed testing every 2 years, and it cost $24.

"Kathleen" had nothing to do with PA's procedure. She, like you, is stuck with it.

If you want to do something about it, consider voting for the other party (wherever you are). The cozy relationships that have been set up between lobbyists (such as the service station operators') and the legislature/governor's mansion in PA is horrifying, largely due to the extreme level of incumbency that occurs (most PA offices might as well be elections for life). The legislature and the governor's mansion can lean on PENNDOT to no end because they control the purse strings and because most people in PENNDOT of any authority are political appointees. Civil service people in PENNDOT are all of such low level it's shocking. It's a very different story in the DEP.

BTW, the people here considered $24 and 20 minutes every two years so oppressive that they demanded a switch to reformulated gas to get rid of the inspection process. Either one was A-OK with EPA for our air quality, which is little different from anywhere in PA outside of Philly. If the state was as beholden to the garage owners doing the inspections as PA's is that'd never happen. As it was the state paid what people thought was an exorbitant amount to the contractor to buy out the contract here. By PA standards it was peanuts.

I'm sure I could since that would be $900 (plus loss of compound interest) for a 3 year inspection even if it didn't need a pump out.
What kind of tortured logic is that?............

That paying for a cleaner world is what we're all doing anyway, and that the "unnecessary & onerous" costs you're complaining about are far less than what the average person in America is already paying without complaint in this area.

You can complain if they want charge you Philly rates instead of red-state midwestern rates if you'd like, however!!

Like not allowing our wild fish populations to pay the price for poor/cheap highway construction, or not allowing the drilling for oil off of Big Sur, the American public long ago accepted that paying more for a cleaner world is a good thing.

The tortured logic in question is why you would reccomend I pay $900+ rather than $700.

However, you have also worn me down with circular logic, obfuscation, pseudo scientific wind-baggery, and just plain untruths.

Ba-da, ba-da, ba-da,......That's All Folks!

If one relies only on the dash display it may be possible to have a vehicle "pass" an emission's inspection even when it should not.
What is to stop someone from using a scan tool to reset a "Check Engine" light just before a "visual" emissions inspection would be done?
Without hooking the car up to a monitoring device, the mechanic would have no idea that the reset was just done and all the "readiness codes"
are not valid. It is my understanding that the current emissions inspection checks the "readiness codes" of the on board computer to insure
that someone has not "reset" the computer. This is the reason why after a repair is done to a vehicle and the mechanic turns off the check engine light, it cannot be emissions inspected until the vehicle resets the "readiness codes" as the driver uses the vehicle.
This is also why inspection stations always warn their customer not to schedule their annual inspection on the last day of the month when their check engine light is on.

Personally, I do not care for certain parts of the emissions testing procedure.
For instance, Why when a vehicle is "Exempt" should the owner have to pay a fee of $20-25?
The amount of time necessary to check the mileage and the amount of time the mechanic's computer
needs to be connected to the Emissions processing computer is extremely short.
This is most definitely a money making situation for certain parties involved.

Don't even get me started on the 100s of millions of dollars of tax payer money the state of Pennsylvania flushed down the toilet
after they broke the contract they signed with the company that was to do centralized emissions testing.
They had actually started construction of 1 or 2 of these inspections stations locally before PA pulled the plug.

Well. I did mis-remember the configuration of one sewage treatment plant I haven't visited in 20 years. Maybe you're right!

When did they do this? It sounds like what we used to have here.

In November 1993, PennDOT contracted with Envirotest Systems of Tucson, Arizona, to implement the state's centralized test-only I/M program.
As of June 1994, Envirotest reported owning 24 sites with 53 more under purchase agreement and having begun construction at 11 sites. When the state of Pennsylvania terminated the contract with Envirotest, that company sought to recoup $354.6 million in termination costs.

The settlement paid by the state of PA amounted to about $145 million dollars.

http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/polycomm/pressrel/95/news_enviro.htm

Envirotest is the same firm Ohio uses, and used in this area prior to the switch to reformulated gas. They still use them in northeast OH, where their services are free. They still need to have their cars tested every two years, but there's no fee any more.

Ohio extends contract for E-Check tests , Ohio.com 7/2/08

Ohio is a very different place from PA!