New Hampshire scored another courtroom victory in the long-running fight over its now-defunct vehicle inspections program on Thursday, when the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals stayed a lower-court injunction that had ordered the state to keep inspecting cars while the underlying lawsuit plays out.
The April 30 ruling pauses, but does not overturn, U.S. District Court Judge Landya McCafferty’s January 27 preliminary injunction, which sided with Gordon-Darby — the Kentucky-based company that ran New Hampshire’s inspection program for years — and ordered the state to continue annual safety and emissions checks on motorists’ vehicles. The First Circuit panel found McCafferty “likely erred in concluding that Gordon-Darby adequately alleged a violation” of the federal Clean Air Act.
In practical terms, the appeals court’s decision changes very little on the ground. New Hampshire stopped inspecting vehicles months ago. The legislature voted last year to sunset the program effective Jan. 31, 2026, and the state has not resumed inspections since — even after McCafferty ordered it to. The Attorney General’s Office has continued to tell drivers they no longer need an annual sticker, only that they must keep their vehicles in safe operating condition.
“Failure to do so violates New Hampshire’s plan for implementing the federal Clean Air Act,” Gordon-Darby argued in its complaint, a position McCafferty initially endorsed. The First Circuit, at least for now, disagrees.
How New Hampshire Got Here
The state’s annual safety and emissions inspection requirement had been a fixture of life for Granite State drivers for decades. Mechanics and dealers told lawmakers the inspections promoted public safety and caught dangerous defects before they caused crashes. Motorists, however, complained about the time and cost — particularly when an inspection turned up a marginal issue that triggered an expensive repair just to get a sticker.
Republican lawmakers used the budget process last year to end the requirement, with the program officially sunsetting Jan. 31. The legislature’s reasoning was that drivers were responsible adults capable of maintaining their own vehicles, and that mandatory inspections imposed unnecessary cost on Granite Staters.
Gordon-Darby, which lost a multimillion-dollar contract overnight, sued in December. The company’s central legal theory: New Hampshire’s federally approved State Implementation Plan under the Clean Air Act commits the state to running an emissions inspection program, so the legislature cannot simply walk away without first amending that plan and getting EPA sign-off.
McCafferty bought the argument in January and ordered the state to keep inspecting. Attorney General John Formella then asked the Executive Council to temporarily extend Gordon-Darby’s contract long enough to comply. The Executive Council declined in early February, leaving the state in the awkward position of being under a federal court order it could not easily carry out.
The Contempt Question — And What Comes Next
On Wednesday — the day before the First Circuit issued its stay — McCafferty declined Gordon-Darby’s request to hold New Hampshire in contempt of court for failing to resume inspections. That ruling, reported by NHPR, gave the state a procedural breather and avoided the spectacle of a federal judge fining the Attorney General’s office over a program the legislature has already abolished.
The combination of Wednesday’s contempt ruling and Thursday’s appeals-court stay leaves the state in a comfortable position heading into the merits stage of the appeal. Gordon-Darby’s case is not over — the First Circuit’s stay analysis is preliminary and tied to the company’s likelihood of success — but the panel’s signal that McCafferty’s reasoning was flawed is significant.
The case now moves toward briefing on the merits before the First Circuit. If the appeals court eventually rules against Gordon-Darby on the underlying Clean Air Act question, the company’s federal claim collapses and the inspection program stays gone. If the First Circuit reverses itself, the state could be forced back to the negotiating table — though, with the contractor’s deal expired and the Executive Council unwilling to revive it, the operational path forward would be murky at best.
For now, drivers can continue doing what they’ve been doing all spring: nothing. The Department of Safety has not changed its public guidance, and the inspection sticker on most Granite State windshields will quietly expire without consequence.
Why It Matters Beyond the Courtroom
The vehicle inspections fight is one of the cleanest test cases in the country of what happens when a state legislature decides it no longer wants to run a federally entangled program. Most state-federal regulatory partnerships — air quality, water quality, Medicaid, highway funding — depend on a state agreeing to do certain things in exchange for federal money or autonomy. New Hampshire’s experiment in just stopping has now drawn a federal lawsuit, a federal injunction, a state-level constitutional standoff with the Executive Council, and now a sharp First Circuit rebuke of the lower court that tried to keep the program alive.
The political message — that New Hampshire is willing to absorb the legal turbulence to keep a campaign promise — is one Republican leadership in Concord is happy to send. It also fits a broader pattern of pushback against state-level mandates that the current legislature has been willing to take public for. The legal message, that a state cannot be forced to keep running a sunsetted program merely because a contractor wants to keep getting paid, is one that other state governments will be watching closely.
Source: Appeals court halts lower-court ruling that NH continue vehicle inspections — NHPR / Keene Sentinel via Granite State News Collaborative
