CEL bulb must have burned out.
Found that out in 2022 when I went to get it inspected. CEL was burned out, so it failed the initial test. That turned into finding surprise codes, which resulted in fixing some engine compartment wiring, which resulted in unrequested smoke release from behind the dash, which resulted in removing the entire dash to replace some melted wires and correcting fuse sizes. THAT resulted in all the codes (and smoke) going away, and the CEL being legit off rather than redneck off.
I brought it in for inspection again, but since then it had become 25 years old and no longer needed that level of inspection. The cynic in me saw that as wasted effort. The optimist in me recognized that annoying as vehicle inspections are, that one actually found a real problem I might not have discovered for some time.