In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

208 An American Nemesis in the 1960s, the American regulatory tradition, born during the Progressive Era and modified after World War II, faced a double crisis: an internal crisis arising from strategic problems (see chapter 5) and an external crisis produced by several changes in the general context in which local officials were operating. First, it was discovered that automobiles were major contributors to the country’s air pollution problem. Needless to say, municipal authorities were in no position to get a grip on an inherently mobile pollution problem; furthermore, the American automobile industry showed only lukewarm interest in solving the problem. Second, new federal policy departed considerably from the municipal tradition and represented a tacit break with the pseudocorporatism of the 1940s and 1950s. Third, the general public was slowly beginning to embrace a new way of looking at the problem, which I will label here, for lack of a better word, the “ecological” perspective . These developments, especially the third, amounted to a fundamental challenge to the regulatory establishment—a challenge, to be sure, that this establishment in many cases failed to recognize, let alone accept. Indeed, while the spread of ecological ideas gave birth to new political demands, the work of the authorities was characterized by a strange attitude of “business as usual.” Needless to say, this merely postponed the conflict and only increased the rift over time. Two different ways of talking about air pollution problems established themselves and took on a life of their own. While questions of what was technically and economically feasible continued to guide “insiders” in industry and regulatory agencies, the effects of air pollution and popular fears about them were dominating the ecological discourse of “out7 environmental revolutions and evolutions environmental revolutions and evolutions 209 siders.” With both discourses gathering momentum throughout the 1960s, the repercussions were enormous when the outsiders’ perspective suddenly became politically potent around 1970. The regulatory establishment, oriented toward consensus and cooperation for decades, not only now saw itself confronted with harsh accusations but also had to struggle with the fact that these two discourses on the same problem were largely incompatible. In order to understand the depth of the regulatory crisis of 1970, it is crucial to note that the clash was not simply about divergent political goals—it was also a disaster of communication, with escalating attacks on what insiders and outsiders all saw as the “other side,” attacks that often betrayed a stunning degree of mutual ignorance. It is an open question whether this debacle could have been avoided: the conclusion of this book will offer some thoughts in that regard. Its consequences, however, were abundantly clear: the pseudocorporatist regulatory tradition came to an abrupt and inglorious end in the late 1960s. The new environmental policy, codified in the federal Clean Air Act of 1970 and in many ways in place to this day, would leave behind the smoking ruins of the previous approaches without so much as a second look. Automobile Exhaust When Los Angeles took up the fight against the phenomenon that would later be identified as photochemical smog in 1943, suspicion also fell on automobile exhaust with remarkable speed. “The large number of automobiles in the Los Angeles area contributes greatly to the total volume of obnoxious gases,” the Smoke and Fumes Commission noted as early as March 1944, and laypeople had similar suspicions.1 Of course, at the time this was little more than speculation, which is why the APCD initially focused on other sources of pollution; after all, automobiles were emitters difficult to control by their sheer number alone, and they were, moreover, not seen as classic polluters.2 It was only when Haagen-Smit developed his smog theory that the APCD took on automobile exhaust, thus starting a debate that lasts to the present day. “The development and enforcement of effective steps to control pollution from automobile exhausts appear to be among the most serious problems of the air pollution control program,” noted a December 1953 report.3 A month later, supervisor Kenneth Hahn told the Southwest Kiwanis Club, “The automobile is the key to complete smog control, and if the automotive industry cooperates, Los Angeles skies can be clear by 1956.”4 At first, officials in Los Angeles were quite happy with the automobile manufacturers. “Detroit is interested and is doing something about our smog problem,” declared a report from the APCD in November 1954, and [52.14.150.55] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 09:47 GMT...

Share