Air Pollution California

Detroit's auto makers argued that the California Air Resources Board was pushing too hard, too fast. The technology isn't ready and is too expensive, they said. Consumers will reject the cars. California's economy will be shattered. It was a tense time for members of the governor's air board. Responsible for cleansing California's grimy skies, they wanted to move decisively, yet feared forcing a promising but unproven smog-control technology on automobiles.

In a surprise development that allows California to retain control over combatting the Los Angeles region's smog, the Clinton Administration and environmentalists have signed a deal that postpones widely disliked federal clean-air measures until at least 1997. The agreement between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and California environmental groups--expected to be unveiled today--is a major relief to Gov.

The California Air Resources Board has tentatively concluded that diesel exhaust could be responsible for more than 1,000 cases of lung cancer a year, which increases pressure on the state to tighten its stringent regulations on buses, trucks and other vehicles that run on diesel fuel. As part of its efforts to control smog, California, since 1988, has imposed the nation's strictest program for controlling diesel exhaust.

Two powerful Michigan lawmakers accused Gov. Pete Wilson on Tuesday of secretly offering to relax California's electric-car mandate in return for a pledge from the U.S. auto industry to move jobs to the state. Wilson's top environmental aide denied the charge as "flatly wrong and spurious," but Rep. John Dingell and Sen.

In a sweeping strategy that moves further to clean up California's smoggiest cities than ever before, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday revealed almost 100 clean-air measures it plans to mandate for the Los Angeles-Orange County area, Sacramento and Ventura County over the next decade.

State and federal officials reached agreement Wednesday on a plan to toughen California's automobile Smog Check program by requiring 15% of the cars in the state to be checked at specialized inspection-only facilities. For those who own the remaining 85% of vehicles, smog inspections would remain virtually unchanged, with visits to neighborhood garages every two years for tests and repairs. The compromise appeared to represent a substantial retreat by the U.S.

Smog-causing fumes from car waxes, carpet cleaners and a wide variety of other popular household products will be cut in half in California under a consumer products regulation unanimously adopted Thursday by the state's air board.