BATON ROUGE - In less than three months, Louisiana will officially phase out traditional windshield inspection stickers for personal, non-commercial vehicles and replace them with a $6 QR code through the Office of Motor Vehicles.

The change takes effect Jan. 1, and it applies to most parishes across the state.

East Baton Rouge Parish is the exception. Vehicles registered in East Baton Rouge, West Baton Rouge, Livingston, Ascension, and Iberville parishes will still need emissions test stickers to meet federal requirements under the Clean Air Act.

Jerome Johnson has operated JJ's Inspections on Plank Road for nearly four decades. He said some residents have still come to him to get their vehicles inspected, but business has dropped sharply since the bill became law.

"It's been awful because people are confused. My business is almost shot. I'm barely hanging on by the skin of my teeth," Johnson said.

He said many other inspection station owners are facing the same situation.

"A lot of them have quit the business totally altogether, but I'm older," Johnson said. "I can't really go somewhere else and start all over, so I'm trying to hang with it and hope that it all pans out in the end."

Even the bill's sponsor, Rep. Larry Bagley of Shreveport, admitted to WBRZ back in May that he didn't know emissions tests would still be required in some parishes.

"I didn't even know there was such a thing until I got this bill together," Bagley said.

The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality confirmed in a statement that federal vehicle emissions testing requirements will remain in place for those five parishes. According to the Environmental Protection Agency's website, a state that does not comply with those federal standards could risk heavy fines or having federal funding withheld. Johnson also weighed in on what could happen if the state falls short on emissions compliance.

"We have a problem with emissions in Louisiana, especially here in Baton Rouge, and if we drop the ball on this, we're going to lose a lot of federal money," Johnson said.

A state police spokesperson said the department's focus has shifted from ticketing to education on the stickers.

State Rep. Charles Owen of Vernon Parish said in a social media post last week that drivers do not need to go out and get the new QR code sticker right away, adding that the Office of Motor Vehicles told him the new QR code will be issued when a driver registers a new vehicle, renews a registration, or updates a name or address.