EDITORIAL
But dad, how will you get to work? Editor: James J. Morgan WASHINGTON EDITORIAL STAFF Managing Editor: Stanton S. Miller Assistant Editor: H. Martin Malin, Jr. Assistant Editor: Carol Knapp Lewicke MANUSCRIPT REV I EW I NG Associate Editor: Norma Yess MANUSCRIPT EDITING Associate Production Manager: Charlotte C. Sayre Editorial Assistant: Julie Plumstead ART AND PRODUCTION Head: Bacil Guiiey Associate Production Manager: Leroy L. Corcoran Art Director: Norman Favin Layout and Production: Dawn Leland Advisory Board: P. L. Brezonik, R. F. Christman, G. F. Hidy, David Jenkins, P. L. McCarty, Charles R. O’Melia, John H. Seinfeld. John W. Winchester Published by the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY 1155 16th Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 Executive Director: Robert W. Cairns PUBLIC AFFAIRS AND COMMUNICATION DIVISION Director: Richard L. Kenyon ADVERTISING MANAGEMENT Centcom, Ltd. For offices and advertisers, see page 276. Please send research manuscripts to Manuscript Reviewing, feature manuscripts to Managing Editor. For author’s guide and editorial policy, see June 1972 issue, page 523 or write Norma Yess, Manuscript Reviewing Office. In each paper with more than one author, the name of the author to whom inquiries should be addressed carries a numbered footnote reference.
Simplistic questions from children have very few answers these days, if indeed they have any at all, and it is especially true with this one. Perhaps the transportation question could be answered years past, but recent air pollution control laws certainly ensnarl one’s options. Early this month, the Los Angeles area plans to hold no less than a series of nine public hearings on the transportation controls that have been proposed to reduce air pollution level in that city’s intrastate air quality control region. And although the problems in California area may be more difficult than in other areas, all told there are 28 urban areas in 18 states that are faced, once again, with telling the federal Environmental Protection Agency precisely what each area plans to do to meet the requirement of clean air by 1975. Of course, in the law extensions can be secured up to a period of two years, and in the past, the EPA administrator has granted some. But early last month, the U S . Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rescinded the earlier-granted extensions, requiring the states once again to reconsider these incredibly difficult decisions. What are the options? Obviously, the list is endlessmass transportation, annual inspection and maintenance programs, conversion of fleet vehicles to natural gas, private bus lanes, rationing of gasoline-certainly you can add others yourself to the seemingly endless list. But that is not the task at hand. The real test is coming forth with a winning combination, one which at the best will not only achieve the standard but one which is viable and somewhat palatable to the public. Perhaps when the public realizes that it is its health that is at stake, perhaps then it will proceed in a rational decision-making process to get on with the cleanup. By the middle of next month public hearings will have been held in each of the 28 areas and again state control strategies will be formulated. The answers are in the offing .
V o l u m e 7, N u m b e r 3, March 1973
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