EDITORIAL: Choking on the haze of California vs. the Feds
- Magazine Article
- 19AUTP05_07
- English
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.