EDITORIAL: Choking on the haze of California vs. the Feds

The term “smog” had not yet been coined when, on July 26, 1943, the first atmospheric inversion blanketed Los Angeles. This alarming, eye-watering and lung-busting cloud-pollution so extreme that some Angelenos thought it was a wartime gas attack-was a harbinger for the deteriorating air quality to come. The situation eventually led California to create its pioneering Motor Vehicle Pollution Control Board.

By the mid-1960s, California had established the first U.S. vehicle emissions standards-which the federal government adopted for 1968-model cars. This pattern-the feds co-opting California's successful innovations-became the model for setting vehicle tailpipe and evaporative emissions standards in the U.S., amid stiff pushback from automakers.