Word: ruckelshauses
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...since, the air has been filled with a smog of contradictory warnings. Environmentalists argue that Detroit must be held to the deadline or it will stall endlessly on the job of cleansing exhausts. Automakers insist that the standards are still technically unfeasible. Last week Environmental Protection Administrator William D. Ruckelshaus, who must enforce the Clean Air Act, decreed a compromise. He gave the auto industry an extra year to meet the full, rigid requirements of the law, but set interim standards so tough that Detroit's reaction was immediate and angry anyway...
Debate. The quadriphonic howls of protest indicated that Ruckelshaus had passed one test of an impartial compromise: he outraged both sides about equally. Ralph Nader, Detroit's perennial fifth wheel,* charged that the EPA decision amounted to "capitulation to the domestic auto industry, pure and simple." Automen insisted that the interim standards are still too stiff. General Motors Chairman Richard Gerstenberg pronounced himself "dismayed"; Henry Ford II pledged to "examine the avenues of administrative, legislative and legal recourse open to us" to get both the interim and final standards softened. The contrasting denunciations unintentionally symbolized what Ruckelshaus himself called...
...single year. Any attempt to force them to do so with the catalyst, Detroit officials warn, could cause supply problems and even shut down plants. The cars that were produced would burn excessive amounts of fuel and require repair far too frequently. The automen pleaded with Ruckelshaus to leave antipollution requirements unchanged for an extra year−except in smog-plagued California, where the catalysts could be given a tryout...
...Clearly, Ruckelshaus bought only part of that argument. His interim standards for California will indeed necessitate a catalyst on every new 1975-model car sold in that state, but the requirements will be stiffened from present levels in the rest of the country too. By 1975, autos outside California may emit only 1.5 grams of hydrocarbons and 15 grams of carbon monoxide for each mile traveled. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that, compared with current pollution levels, these standards will take California two-thirds of the way, and the rest of the country halfway, toward meeting the requirements originally laid...
...Ruckelshaus, in contrast, figures that because of other engine improvements called for during the next two years, the car makers will have to fit catalysts to only 10% of 1975-model cars sold outside California. The new schedule, he believes, will give Detroit time to learn the production technology necessary to meet the full, original requirements of the law by 1976. His agency contends that much of Detroit's other nay-saying is groundless. Government scientists insist that fuel consumption in cars fitted with catalysts will be no higher than in cars equipped with the antipollution devices now required...