Syrian Hopes

Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and the Wright brothers. Looking back on the project years afterwards, one of them reflected to the journalist Tim Palucka: “Having a major breakthrough is very rare in any company. In the catalytic converter we had two major breakthroughs: A new process and new materials that didn’t exist before.”

In return for these heroic engineering feats, the auto industry got an unshakable reputation as a pack of alarmists and wolf criers. The result was several decades of arbitrary environmental directives that were often based on nothing more than wishful thinking. Even after the catalytic converter was adopted, for example, the Clean Air Act’s sweeping edicts of 90 percent cuts in carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and nitrogen oxides proved to be unattainable. That’s why the deadlines had to be extended half a dozen times, and sometimes reduced to more realistic levels as well. A similar story occurred after California decreed in 1990 that 10 percent of cars sold in the state in 2003 would have to be zero-emission vehicles. After a long series of reductions and extensions, the current goal is 0.5 percent by 2014.

About the Author

Jay Nordlinger

Jay Nordlinger was a senior editor of National Review and a book fellow at National Review Institute.

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Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and the Wright brothers. Looking back on the project years afterwards, one of them reflected to the journalist Tim Palucka: “Having a major breakthrough is very rare in any company. In the catalytic converter we had two major breakthroughs: A new process and new materials that didn’t exist before.”

In return for these heroic engineering feats, the auto industry got an unshakable reputation as a pack of alarmists and wolf criers. The result was several decades of arbitrary environmental directives that were often based on nothing more than wishful thinking. Even after the catalytic converter was adopted, for example, the Clean Air Act’s sweeping edicts of 90 percent cuts in carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and nitrogen oxides proved to be unattainable. That’s why the deadlines had to be extended half a dozen times, and sometimes reduced to more realistic levels as well. A similar story occurred after California decreed in 1990 that 10 percent of cars sold in the state in 2003 would have to be zero-emission vehicles. After a long series of reductions and extensions, the current goal is 0.5 percent by 2014.