July 12, 1973
Page 23526
CLEAN AIR ACT
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the July 6 Evening Star contained a very thoughtful column by James J. Kilpatrick on some of the questions facing the Congress and the Nation in examining implementation of the Clean Air Act. As Mr. Kilpatrick correctly points out, a number of valid questions are currently being discussed regarding the stringency of the standards and the adequacy of the health basis for those standards.
As I indicated on June 29, the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution of the Committee on Public Works is currently examining those questions through development of a cooperative effort with the National Academy of Sciences.
Mr. Kilpatrick also points out, however, that there is another matter which has often been ignored in recent statements we have received suggesting that the Clean Air Act standards are too stringent. That matter is the auto industry's unswerving commitment to the existing engine and their apparent unwillingness to change even in the face of overwhelming evidence that the existing engine is not the best engine to give the American public clean, fuel efficient, and safe car which they deserve. As Mr. Kilpatrick notes:
If engineers had taken their precious overhead valve engine off the pedestal long ago, smashed the icon and started over, they wouldn't be in this humiliating fix right now.
Unfortunately, the "fix" which Mr. Kilpatrick refers to is not just a problem for the auto industry, but also for the Congress and the American public, because the public must pay and the Congress must recognize the heavy costs resulting from the industry's refusal to change.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Kilpatrick's statement be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
MORE THAN DOODADS NEEDED
(By James J. Kilpatrick)
On June 26, a General Motors vice president turned up before the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Spokesmen for Chrysler and Ford had been there the day before. All were pleading for the same thing – a further delay in the enforcement of federal clean air standards.
"Even though we have diligently sought solutions to meet the 1976 standards," said the gentleman from GM, "we have been unable to develop the requisite technology to meet all the requirements for 1976 models."
Put another way, what GM was saying – and the other companies also – is that they have not developed the technology to produce an emission control system for existing automobile engines.
The key word is "existing." For the past 20 years, auto producers have worshipped their basic overhead valve engine, kept it on a pedestal, and regarded it with reverence as a kind of sacred icon. It is this icon worship that has them in trouble today.
Now, granted, this whole problem of "clean air" is awesomely complex. So far as the problem involves the automobile, the government is putting its reliance upon enforcing national emission standards, first as to hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide, and later for oxides of nitrogen. Yet it is generally acknowledged that the problem is "national" only in a sense: Smog is a terrrible problem in some cities, but over much of the country, most of the time, smog is no more intolerable than the common fly.
It is thus a fair question – Chrysler has raised the issue persuasively – whether EPA's standards are unreasonably high. It is another fair question, raised in February by the National Academy of Sciences, whether the billions of dollars that will be spent on emission control systems could be spent more wisely and usefully on other areas of public health. A host of fair questions have to do with the impact of the EPA requirements upon fuel consumption, foreign trade, auto design, mass transit and consumer choice.
All those questions merit debate, but forgive me, today, for sticking narrowly to the icon question. If engineers had taken their precious overhead valve engine off the pedestal long ago, smashed the icon and started over, they wouldn't be in this humiliating fix right now.
For all kinds of reasons, mainly profitable reasons, the industry has stayed by its beloved altar.
Engineers vowed to protect the icon at any cost. They bolted on a new carburetor, set extra lean; they added doodads that squirt extra air to the exhaust system; they developed extensive catalytic converters that demand no-lead fuels.
The result is an engine that starts poorly, runs worse, squanders gas, burns up spark plugs twice as fast, and is not expected to give 50,000 miles of basically trouble-free service. The National Committee on Motor Vehicle Emissions, in its February report, placed the eventual annual cost of a fuel catalyst system at $23.5 billion – a walloping sum of money.
The problem can't be solved with doodads. Those unwanted hydrocarbons are created in the combustion chamber, and a solution must be found there. Foreign manufacturers, not obsessed with icon worship, learned this long ago.
One Japanese firm, Honda, already has designed, built, tested and gained certification for a reliable engine that meets 1975 standards. Honda's control system relies on a stratified charge, in which a small amount of gasoline-rich fuel is ignited in a small chamber and the resulting combustion then ignites an overly lean mixture in a larger chamber.
The concept is not new. Army tank designers have been working with the idea for years. The Mercedes diesel engine and Wankel rotary engine apparently possess the required technology; and these engines possess it now. Belatedly, major producers have bought rights to the Wankel, but they have not exactly embraced it.
If EPA yields to the industry's pleas, we are likely to get more doodads. What we need are more iconoclasts – industry leaders who will put away old idols and turn their creative energies, just as their admen say, to producing some truly better ideas.