Columnist Stephen Chapman takes the federal Clean Air Act of 1990 and assorted state regulations to the woodshed for attempting to force expensive new solutions to the urban smog problem (Op-Ed, July 8). He points out that earlier regulations eliminated some 96 percent of the pollutants for new cars, and that some 10 percent of the cars now on the road account for 50 percent of the pollutants, calling the new strategy an “expensive fraud.”
My view would be slightly more charitable. Emerging analytical techniques would permit all cars to be scanned as they enter a freeway ramp, for example, and the worst offenders notified by mail to undergo correction or further testing. But the federal EPA and comparable state agencies are frozen into the old pattern of elaborate testing techniques and, like all bureaucracies, are difficult to change.
I must note, however, that Mr. Chapman must have compromised his libertarian principles even to admit the success of the governmentally mandated program that resulted in the 96 percent elimination. Of course, this would not have been possible without improved technology, but maybe a legislative prod is sometimes needed.
