Auto Emissions

Auto Emissions

As long as automobiles have existed, they have spewed dangerous toxins into the air. The content and volume of these emissions have changed over the years. When leaded gasoline was the norm, the blood lead levels of the American population were significantly higher than they are today. Before catalytic converters, smog was an even worse problem, especially in car-heavy cities like Los Angeles. Currently, America's cars contribute to a staggering one-fifth of our nation’s carbon emissions and almost half of global automotive carbon emissions. 

Cry Wolf Quotes

Listen, these are the same people who will be standing in unemployment lines if the Clinton-Gore proposals are put into effect.

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John T. Truscott, Press Secretary to Republican Governor John Engler, The New York Times.

We have stated that the full-size car market can’t be ignored because it is accounting for 30 percent of domestic auto sales for the model year. Chrysler does not intend to, and would not, abandon a market segment of that size and importance to automotive buyers.

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.K. Brown, Vice President of Chrysler Group, Chicago Tribune.

Our feeling was and still is that there is no scientific reason for not relaxing regulations. [Easing lead rules would] save billions of dollars in the balance of payments and also of million of barrels of crude oil a year.

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Dr. Jerome F. Cole, director of environmental health for the Lead Industries Association. The New York Times.

I would hope we would never get into a position that we’d have to tell our customers they can’t buy certain cars because of the mileage requirements.

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Richard Terrell, Vice Chairman of GM, Chicago Tribune.

Evidence

Backgrounders & Briefs

The Success of CAFE Standards

How the CAFE standard and its successes.

The Secret History of Lead

This immense article is an intricately detailed history of leaded gasoline, from the industry's early cover-ups to their attempts to defeat EPA regulations.

The Removal of Lead From Gasoline: Historical and Personal Reflections

First-person historical analysis of the leaded gasoline fight.