In contrast to popularized reports, there is no persuasive evidence that low-level lead exposure is responsible for any intelligence defects.
The restrictions make us waste oil every time we make gasoline [thus forcing costs up].
[Removing lead from gasoline] threatens the jobs of the 14 million Americans directly dependent and the 29 million Americans indirectly dependent on the petrochemical industry for employment.
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.
With the Environmental Protection Agency laws, we’d either have to shut down or break the law, and we aren’t going to break the law.
If we sell too many big cars in any quarter in 1978, we’ll have to hold back our product mix and we’ll have to ration or allocate cars. The law is final now, but if enough people complain when they can’t get a big car, maybe the government will revise its legislation. To meet 27.5 m.p.g. by ’85, the average weight of cars will have to be about 3,200 pounds versus 4,000 pounds now. That means every car would be a compact, subcompact, or smaller. The new law implies that we must get better fuel economy between 1980 and 1985 then between 1978 and 1980. That’s unlikely.
If we sell too many big cars, we’ll have to stop building them. Then we’ll have to ram small cars down consumers’ throats and use dealer incentives to get rid of them so that we can build big cars again. The public is going to rebel because these hard-to-get big cars will then sell for full list or higher when the small cars are being given away.
The conflict between government standards and market demands is increased by the rollback of petroleum prices and extension of petroleum price controls at the same time. By making gasoline cheaper, congress has encouraged consumer demand for larger cars, while at the same time imposing fuel economy standards that require stronger demand for small cars.
In summary, epidemiologic evidence supports the position that airborne lead in the concentrations found in the general ambient atmosphere is, at most, a minor contributor to lead in blood. The increment of quantity of the airborne lead contribution even if it can be deduced, is biologically meaningless.
Ill-considered arbitrary fuel economy legislation could delay progress in conserving gasoline, extend unemployment, and restrict economic progress. It also could deny the choice of vehicles desired and needed by a large number of Americans.
