Cars on the road today are 99% cleaner than they were in 1970. As a result, air quality in the United States is much better. In Los Angeles, where I live, lead levels in the air in the 1970s were 50 times what they are today, but the amount of lead in children’s blood has dropped dramatically.
This decline was made possible by the catalytic converter, perhaps the most important environmental technology ever invented.
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At a time when the Trump administration is attacking California’s ability to reduce air and climate pollution and revoking Clean Air Act exemptions, it is helpful to remember how important the state’s leadership has been in making the air that Americans breathe healthier.
California’s role in the emergence of catalytic technology is often downplayed, as I detail in my forthcoming book, “Smog and Sunshine: The Remarkable Story of Los Angeles’ Clean Air.” The passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970 is usually credited. The important role of this law is commendable. So did William Ruckelshaus, the first administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
But without California’s willingness in the early 1970s to require automakers to meet strict standards, technology would have progressed much more slowly and the air would have remained polluted for many more years.
Birth of the catalytic converter
Eugene Haudry invented the first catalytic converter technology in the 1950s. A few years earlier, he had developed the Houdry process for catalytic cracking, which made it much easier to convert crude oil into gasoline. This invention in the mid-1930s spurred the mass introduction of cars and trucks in the United States.
The proliferation of automobile ownership has changed American life, changing where people live, work, and vacation. But as car use skyrocketed, it also brought with it terrible smog. When Houdry realized that his life’s work was choking the air in Los Angeles, he decided to do something about it. By the late 1950s, Haudry had invented the rudimentary catalytic converter.
You might think that the invention, which Houdry said could cause a “lowering of the lung cancer curve,” would encourage automakers to include the technology in their new cars.
But that’s not what happened. Instead, the automakers engaged in what the government called a years-long conspiracy to take emissions-limiting technology off the market, ultimately resulting in an antitrust settlement.
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It wasn’t until the passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970 that automakers got serious about refining Foudry’s invention for mass-market installation.
The ambition of the Clean Air Act
The Clean Air Act of 1970 is a remarkable piece of legislation. Passed with just one negative vote and signed into law by President Richard Nixon, the law set very ambitious goals. It included a requirement that automakers reduce vehicle pollutants by 90% by 1975.
Congress passed this requirement knowing that the technology to reduce emissions was not ready for prime time. Houdry’s catalyst did not work with leaded gasoline and had not been tested under extreme conditions, such as extreme cold or sweltering heat.
Ford Motor Company, headed by Lee Iacocca, told Congress in 1970 that “if such (pollution reductions) were established…we would not be able to continue producing automobiles beyond January 1, 1975 with the technology we know today.”
Congress ignored Ford’s dire warnings and passed harsh cuts.
Automakers responded with two different strategies. The first was to work with companies like Corning Glass and the Engelhard Company to set the stage for the development of technology capable of 90% reductions. Most of their efforts focused on improving catalytic converters, made even more likely by Engelhardt’s determination that catalytic converters would not corrode with unleaded gasoline. The EPA’s Ruckelshaus ordered gas stations to make unleaded gasoline available starting January 1, 1975.
As auto companies sought to comply with Congress’ orders, they also pressured Congress and the courts to weaken or delay them. In response, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ordered Ruckelshaus to extend its compliance deadline by one year. Congress ultimately extended that deadline until 1981.
But California didn’t give up.
a gamble that paid off
California has the authority under federal law to issue its own vehicle pollution standards, as long as the standards are stronger than federal standards and the state receives an exemption from the EPA. No other state has similar authority, but states can adopt California’s higher standards.
California has decided not to exempt car companies from liability after a federal appeals court gave them an additional year to comply with federal regulations.
The state asked Ruckelshaus to exempt California from issuing standards so strict that automakers would have to install catalyst technology to meet them.
Automakers argued that the technology was neither valid nor usable, and Rückelshaus faced significant pressure to deny the exemption. But in a hint of his resolve when he later rejected President Nixon’s order to fire Watergate Special Counsel Archibald Cox, Mr. Ruckelshaus gave the go-ahead to California in 1973, and the state’s rules took effect starting with the 1975 model.
He reasoned that doing so would “minimize the risks associated with the national introduction of new technology while maintaining continued momentum towards the introduction of (catalytic) systems.” In other words, California could serve as a guinea pig for the rest of the country by adopting stricter standards.
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The gamble paid off. Because California was the nation’s largest automobile market, companies had a strong financial incentive to modify their models to meet the state’s standards. Catalyst technology is now standard equipment on vehicles in the United States and around the world, and has significantly improved air quality in the United States.
With the adoption of catalytic converters, leaded gasoline was banned and eventually phased out, and lead levels began to fall almost immediately.
Carrying on the California tradition
Catalytic converters have removed 8 billion tons of pollution from the U.S. air. Catalytic converters have saved hundreds of thousands of lives and helped remove lead, a deadly neurotoxin, from the atmosphere.
California standards have spurred significant innovations in vehicles, including new types of low-emission gasoline and vehicles that emit no pollution at all.
But the country’s ability to set higher standards is under attack. Congress overturned three waivers granted to states to further reduce pollutants and greenhouse gases that cause climate change, ordered by the Trump administration. The Trump administration also sued the state of California to overturn its mandate on automakers to sell zero-emission vehicles.
Now California officials are looking for other ways to keep cars and trucks clean. States have secured funding to replace federal tax incentives for electric vehicles, and Congress is exploring creative ways to hold air pollution accountable for indirect sources such as depots, ports and warehouses where vehicles are constantly on the road.
But these alternatives are not as strong as the authority to clean the air beyond federal standards.
This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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