The vehicles of Butler County motorists currently are not required to undergo an annual emissions inspection as part of the annual state inspection process.

Perhaps someday they will, unless state Sen. John Wozniak of Johnstown has his way.

It’s Wozniak’s belief that cleaner cars have made the emissions inspections obsolete. Emissions test-related statistics back up his position.

In addition, the fact that vehicle owners in fewer than half of the state’s 67 counties are required to have the tests dispels most of the reasons for conducting the tests.

If conducting the tests is so crucial to clean air in the Keystone State, then all vehicles in all counties should have to undergo them.

But statistics from the state Department of Transportation back up Wozniak’s contention that because “virtually all cars pass the test . . . it’s time to re-evaluate whether it’s just a waste of money for consumers.”

PennDOT reports that in each of the past five years only about 4 percent of vehicles failed the tests. And, if cases are excluded where simply replacing a faulty gasoline cap resulted in the vehicle passing, the failure rate was only about 2.5 percent.

State environmental officials contend that, despite the low failure numbers, the inspections still play an important role in keeping the air clean.

What those officials didn’t say was that maintaining the paperwork tied to those inspections also means that some state employees whose jobs deal primarily with the inspections will be able to keep their jobs.

“Motor vehicles are responsible for as much as half of the emissions causing ozone pollution in the commonwealth,” said Chris Trostle of the state Department of Environmental Protection.

But that ozone pollution doesn’t just occur in the counties where the inspections are required to be performed.

The federally mandated inspections program began in 1984 in Pennsylvania, starting with Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and the Lehigh Valley. The mandate now covers more than two dozen counties; Butler County is not one of them.

Wozniak says he introduced a resolution earlier this year to ask the federal government to end the requirement in Pennsylvania. State lawmakers should pass the resolution and forward it to Washington.

Other states recording similarly low failure statistics might want to get onboard the effort.

“I think the test needs to be tested,” Wozniak said. He’s right.

And, since emissions cross county and state lines, and since many thousands of vehicles from beyond Pennsylvania travel on Keystone State roads each day, it’s reasonable to conclude that eliminating the commonwealth’s emissions tests won’t have much of a negative impact on Pennsylvania’s air quality. And ending the tests would save millions of state residents some money.

Wozniak should continue to build support for ending the unnecessary emissions testing.