FEDERAL  REGULATORY  MANAGEMENT  OF  THE  AUTOMOBILE  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES,  

1966–1988    

 by      

LEE  JARED  VINSEL      

DISSERTATION      

Presented  to  the  Faculty  of  the  College  of  Humanities  and  Social  Sciences  of  Carnegie  Mellon  University  in  

Partial  Fulfillment  of  the  Requirements    For  the  Degree  of  

   

DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY        

Carnegie  Mellon  University    

May  2011    

         Dissertation  Committee:  Professor  David  A.  Hounshell,  Chair  Professor  Jay  Aronson  Professor  John  Soluri  Professor  Joel  A.  Tarr  Professor  Steven  Usselman  (Georgia  Tech)  

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©  2011  Lee  Jared  Vinsel                                                          

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Dedication                            

For  the  Vinsels,  the  McFaddens,  and  the  Middletons    

and    

for  Abigail,  who  held  the  ship  steady                                                        

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Abstract  

 

Federal  Regulatory  Management  of  the  Automobile    

in  the  United  States,  1966–1988  

 

by  LEE  JARED  VINSEL  

 

Dissertation  Director:  

Professor  David  A.  Hounshell  

 

Throughout  the  20th  century,  the  automobile  became  the  great  American  machine,  a  

technological  object  that  became  inseparable  from  every  level  of  American  life  and  

culture  from  the  cycles  of  the  national  economy  to  the  passions  of  teen  dating,  from  

the  travails  of  labor  struggles  to  the  travels  of  “soccer  moms.”  Yet,  the  automobile  

brought  with  it  multiple  dimensions  of  risk:  crashes  mangled  bodies,  tailpipes  

spewed  toxic  exhausts,  and  engines  “guzzled”  increasingly  limited  fuel  resources.  

During  the  1960s  and  1970s,  the  United  States  Federal  government  created  

institutions—primarily  the  National  Highway  Traffic  Safety  Administration  within  

the  Department  of  Transportation  and  the  Office  of  Mobile  Source  

Pollution  Control  in  the  Environmental  Protection  Agency—to  regulate  the  

automobile  industry  around  three  concerns,  namely  crash  safety,  fuel  efficiency,  and  

control  of  emissions.  This  dissertation  examines  the  growth  of  state  institutions  to  

regulate  these  three  concerns  during  the  1960s  and  1970s  through  the  1980s  when  

  v  

the  state  came  under  fire  from  new  political  forces  and  governmental  bureaucracies  

experienced  large  cutbacks  in  budgets  and  staff.    

 

While  most  previous  studies  of  regulation  have  focused  either  on  biographies  of  

regulatory  visionaries  (a.k.a.  policy  entrepreneurs)  or  on  legislative  histories,  this  

dissertation  examines  how  the  federal  government  built  bureaucratic  organizations  

and  administrative  capacity  to  regulate  and  force  change  in  the  automobile  through  

performance  standards.  Employees  of  these  agencies  helped  shape  automobile  

design  by  creating  routine  regulatory  procedures  that  intervened  in  the  

longstanding  traditions  of  automobile  design.  Only  by  examining  these  micro-‐

practices  of  governmental  power,  I  argue,  can  we  understand  how  regulatory  

regimes  have  truly  influenced  their  intended  objects.  My  dissertation  examines  how  

these  institutions  developed,  learned,  and  evolved,  with  an  eye  to  how  these  

transformations  shaped  technological  change  in  the  automobile  industry.  By  

examining  the  mundane  world  of  federal  test  procedures,  scientific  studies,  agency  

meetings,  and  administrative  hearings,  I  will  show  how  low-‐level  bureaucrats  

formed  new  networks  between  government  and  industry,  established  the  state  of  

the  art  in  automobile  technology,  and  forced  innovation  in  automobile  design.  

 

 

 

 

 

  vi  

Acknowledgments  

Over  the  three  years  of  this  dissertation’s  making,  a  number  of  institutions  

have  supported  my  research  and  writing.    Two  National  Science  Foundation  grants  

funded  my  research  and  studies  early  on,  the  grant  that  created  the  Climate  Decision  

Making  Center  and  the  grant  titled  “The  Socio-‐Political  Construction  of  Technologies  

under  "Technology-‐Forcing"  Regulations:  A  Tale  of  Two  Automotive  Technologies,  

"One"  Government  and  "One"  Industry.”  I  was  pleased  and  honored  to  receive  a  

Dissertation  Improvement  Grant  from  the  National  Science  Foundation  and  the  John  

E.  Rovensky  Fellowship  in  American  Business  or  Economic  History  for  the  2009–

2010  academic  year.    Two  dissertation  workshops  helped  me  improve  and  winnow  

down  my  work:  Sheila  Jasanoff  and  Clark  Miller  challenged  me  to  clarify  and  refine  

my  thinking  during  the  Social  Science  Research  Council  Dissertation  Proposal  

Development  Fellowship  in  2008.    Pamela  Laird,  Mary  O’Sullivan,  and  Steve  Tolliday  

also  helped  me  consider  new  avenues  of  research  and  unexplored  corners  of  my  

topic  at  the  Business  History  Conference’s  Oxford  Journals  Colloquium  in  Business  

History  in  2009.    (Thanks,  too,  to  Jenna  Alden  for  organizing  the  BHC  Colloquium  in  

Milan,  Italy.)  Finally,  in  2008,  a  Ford  Motor  Company  Research  Funding  grant  

assisted  my  continuing  work.    Thanks  also  to  the  librarians  at  Carnegie  Mellon,  

especially  Kara  Kreger  and  Sue  Collins,  who  always  effectively  answered  my  

questions.

A  number  of  people  inside  and  outside  government  helped  me  in  locating  

both  people  and  records.    The  librarians  and  record  managers  David  Doernberg  

(Department  of  Transportation)  and  Kirk  Nims  (Environmental  Protection  Agency)  

  vii  

led  me  to  important  archival  discoveries.    My  work  at  the  EPA  may  have  gone  

nowhere  at  all  if  not  for  Joseph  Somers,  who  both  shared  recollections  from  his  near  

photographic  memory  and  gave  me  the  contact  info  of  several  retired  EPA  staff  

members.    The  most  important  of  these  contacts  was  Eric  Stork.    Eric  helped  me  in  

innumerable  ways,  offering  his  time  whenever  I  requested  it,  allowing  me  to  

interview  him  several  times,  sharing  his  large  collection  of  press  clipping  and  

private  papers,  and  reviewing  my  chapter  drafts  to  ensure  that  I  did  not  botch  some  

matter  of  fact.  I  owe  him  a  great  deal.    Karl  Hellman  also  helped  by  trusting  me  with  

his  memories  and  with  his  large  collection  of  EPA  memos  and  reports,  which  he  

gave  me  in  the  summer  of  2010.    Thanks  also  to  other  present  and  former  EPA  staff  

members  who  allowed  me  to  interview  them,  including  Ernie  Rosenberg,  Janet  

Auerbach,  Richard  Lawrence,  Joseph  Merenda,  Charles  Gray,  Rich  Cook,  and  

Katherine  A.  Sargent.    Though  I  chose  in  the  end  not  to  rely  on  oral  histories  in  the  

chapters  on  federal  auto  safety  regulations,  I  could  not  have  negotiated  the  

landscape  of  automotive  crash  safety  without  several  interviews  that  gave  me  some  

insight  into  the  workings  of  the  National  Highway  Traffic  Safety  Administration.    I  

am  particularly  indebted  to  Michael  Finkelstein,  Marilena  Amoni,  Joseph  Kanianthra,  

Sam  Daniels,  Clarke  Harper,  Harry  Thompson,  Jim  Simons,  and  John  Hinch.    Through  

interviews,  Bill  King  and  Richard  Klimisch  gave  me  insight  into  the  auto  industry’s  

side  of  the  story,  and  Steve  Plotkin  helped  me  see  the  complexity  of  auto  regulation.  

It  has  become  a  convention  for  authors’  to  list  a  number  of  commentators  

who  have  improved  their  work,  and  then  to  write  something  like,  “All  errors  are  

mine  and  mine  alone.”    We  should  equally  say  this  about  our  selves.  I  have  been  

  viii  

blessed  to  have  many  people  (and  institutions)  in  my  life  who  have  helped  shape  me  

in  positive  ways—including  the  part  of  me  that  wrote  this  dissertation.    All  

remaining  errors  (of  self)  are  mine  and  mine  alone.  

At  Carnegie  Mellon,  I  benefited  greatly  from  being  a  member  of  the  Climate  

Decision  Making  Center,  an  interdisciplinary  group  dedicated  to  studying  climate  

change  policy-‐  and  decision-‐making  under  uncertainty.    The  professors  and  students  

of  that  group  formed  my  thinking  in  ways  that  I  did  not  come  to  realize  until  much  

later.    I  am  indebted  to  Granger  Morgan,  Lester  Lave,  Marija  Ilic,  and  Jay  Apt.  The  

students  of  the  CDMC  always  enlivened  me  and  led  me  to  think  about  new  subjects.    

I  am  particularly  thankful  to  (and  miss)  Inês  Azevedo,  Vanessa  Schweizer,  

Constantine  Samaras,  Josh  Stolaroff,  and  Andy  Grieshop.    I  was  also  lucky  to  be  able  

to  sit  in  on  the  seminars  of  SETChange  (Strategy,  Entrepreneurship,  and  

Technological  Change).    Being  around  Steven  Klepper  and  Francisco  Veloso  taught  

me  a  great  deal,  and  their  student  Leonardo  Reyes-‐Gonzalez  left  an  indelible  

impression.  In  the  History  Department,  Steve  Schlossman  guided  my  early  forays  

into  the  archive  in  the  graduate  research  seminar.  Paul  Eiss  kept  my  theory  chops  

honed.  Scott  Sandage  taught  me  not  only  about  the  arts  of  writing  history  and  

teaching  but  also  about  the  art  of  living.  It’s  rare  to  find  someone  who  can  teach  you  

so  much,  and  I  can’t  thank  him  enough  for  it.  Kevin  Brown,  Cian  McMahon,  Susan  

Spellman,  and  Patrick  Zimmerman  have  been  true  friends.  Susan  has  frequently  

tightened  my  prose,  challenged  my  hazy  thoughts,  and,  generally,  kicked  me  when  I  

needed  kicking.  Thanks,  sister.    Thanks,  finally,  to  the  History  Department’s  staff  

members,  especially  Natalie  Taylor  and  Gail  Tooks.  

  ix  

I  am  very  lucky  to  have  found  such  an  excellent  dissertation  committee  in  

David  Hounshell,  Jay  Aronson,  John  Soluri,  Joel  Tarr,  and  Steven  Usselman.  Jay  led  

me  in  an  important  guided  reading  on  Science  and  Technology  Studies  and  has  

helped  me  along  in  other  essential  ways.    John  also  carried  out  an  extended  guided  

reading  with  me  on  global  environmental  history.  John  has  always  asked  me  very  

hard  and  smart  questions  and  has  pushed  me  to  broaden  my  thinking  on  all  levels.  

Joel  has  always  encouraged  my  broad  interests  and  searching  mind.    He  honed  my  

historical  skills  by  allowing  me  to  assist  his  research  and  by  teaching  me  what  he  

was  thinking  as  I  did  so.    I  thank  him  for  always  being  supportive.  Joel  will  have  

always  been  my  intellectual  grandfather  .  .  .  or,  perhaps  more  appropriately,  

Godfather.  

As  an  undergraduate,  I  trained  in  philosophy  and  imagined  that  I  would  

always  remain  in  that  field.  Then,  fatefully,  I  happened  upon  a  book  called  

Regulating  Railroad  Innovation  by  a  man  named  Steven  Usselman.  Steve  was  kind  to  

reply  a  random  fan  letter  from  a  kid  in  Chicago  but  kinder  to  become  a  mentor  and  

friend.  His  work  continues  to  provide  a  model  of  great  historical  thinking.  Steve  put  

me  in  touch  with  historians  of  technology  in  Chicago,  who  brought  me  into  the  fold.    

Thanks  especially  to  Richard  John,  who  trusted  a  stranger  to  assist  his  research  and  

taught  me  a  great  deal.  And  thanks  to  the  regular  attendees  of  the  Newbery  Library’s  

seminar  in  the  history  of  technology,  particularly  Tom  Misa.    I  have  benefited  

immensely  from  being  a  member  of  that  happy  republic,  the  Society  for  the  History  

of  Technology,  and  of  the  Business  History  Conference.    Thanks  particularly  to  Meg  

Graham,  Hugh  Gorman,  Bill  Leslie,  Daniel  Holbrook,  Chris  Rosen,  Arwen  Mohun,  and  

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Bernie  and  Jane  Carlson.  I  am  blessed  to  have  found  an  excellent  group  of  peers  in  

these  societies—my  own  little  intellectual  “school.”  Thanks  to  Hyungsub  Choi,  

Barbara  Hahn,  Eric  Hintz,  Eric  Nystrom,  Dominique  Tobell,  Ben  Waterhouse,  and  

especially  to  my  historical  soul  mate,  Andy  Russell.  

Three  men  have  been  instrumental  in  mentoring  my  intellectual  life.  After  a  

random  inquiry  I  made  after  watching  the  movie  Clueless,  my  high  school  English  

teacher,  Mark  Wilson,  gave  me  some  Nietzsche  to  read  in  my  sophomore  year.  He  

then  mentored  me  as  I  moved  through  that  irascible  German  to  the  existentialists  

and,  finally,  by  my  senior  year,  the  structuralists  and  post-‐structuralists.    He  

answered  my  every  curiousity  and  counseled  me  in  the  life  of  the  heart  as  well  as  

that  of  the  mind.    I  know  that  I  would  not  be  who  I  am  today  were  it  not  for  “Mr.  

Wilson.”      In  my  days  as  an  undergraduate,  Professor  Bill  Schroeder  became  the  

person  who  answered  my  long  list  of  philosophical  questions  and  who  lectured  with  

such  furious  enthusiasm  that  I  became  assured  of  earlier  inklings  that  I  wanted  to  

get  a  PhD.    Most  of  all,  Bill  taught  me  that  study  required  the  fire  of  passion  as  much  

as  it  did  the  cool  order-‐making  of  reason.  He  remains  a  fast  friend  who  continues  to  

inspire  me  in  important  ways.      

Finally,  Professor  David  Hounshell  has  taught  me  in  more  ways  than  I  can  

enumerate.    He  has  always  patiently  humored  my  whim  and  curiousity,  while  

fostering  in  me  whatever  discipline,  rigor,  and  clarity  I  possess.    His  encyclopedic  

knowledge  of  history  and  historiography  answered  my  every  query.  Most  

importantly,  David  took  on  a  student  who  wrote  broken  and  mangled  prose  and  

turned  him  into  someone  who  is  occasionally  capable  of  producing  a  clear  English  

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sentence.    For  all  these  things  and  many  more  (which  he  would  happily  itemize  for  

you),  I  owe  David  a  great  deal  and  thank  him  for  allowing  me  to  be  his  apprentice.    

    If  my  intellectual  mentors  have  been  men,  all  of  my  spiritual  ones  have  been  

women.  I  owe  much  to  Rev.  Deborah  Warren,  Rev.  Mary  Louise  McCullough,  Bonnie  

Thurston,  Rev.  Maureen  Dickman,  Sr.  Karen  Freund,  and  my  dear  late  friend  Sandra  

Mellen.      

  My  hometown,  Joliet,  was  a  hard  place  that  rarely  fostered  aspirations.    

Several  adults  helped  me  along  the  way,  however,  including  Mr.  Michael  Reilly,  Carol  

Sossong,  the  Coughlen  family,  and  Pat  McGuire.  My  friends—“the  circus”—always  

gave  me  hope.  I  thank  Ramon,  Kahlil,  Ben  (HBH),  Nina,  Ellen,  Eliot  (forever),  Jean,  

Bill,  Andrew,  and  my  brothers,  Mike  and  Casey.  Since  those  days,  I  have  been  lucky  

to  befriend  and  be  challenged  and  supported  by  Thom  Moran,  Darcy  Bean,  Dan  

Pride,  Matei  Costinescu,  Ben  Wachter,  Brian  Beahan,  and  Sarah  Ratermann  Beahan.    

Thanks  to  Sarah  Ratermann  Beahan  and  Emily  Murphy  for  helping  me  edit  my  

dissertation  at  various  points.  

  I  dedicate  this  dissertation  to  my  family,  the  Vinsels,  the  McFaddens,  the  

Middletons,  and  to  my  wife,  Abigail  Middleton.  My  parents  provided  a  home  that  

encouraged  learning,  thinking,  and  the  development  of  eccentricity.    To  them,  I  can  

only  say,  thank  you,  knowing  that  no  words  will  ever  suffice.      Much  love  to  my  

sisters,  Hannah  and  Rachel,  and  especially  to  my  brother,  Jaco,  who  always  lifts  my  

spirits.    My  nuclear  family  is  the  confluence  of  two  wonderful  streams.  I  thank  the  

Vinsels  and  McFaddens  for  always  being  there,  and  I  dedicate  my  work  especially  to  

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the  memory  of  Grandma  Lydia,  Grandpa  Loren,  and  Uncle  Mike,  and  in  tribute  to  my  

namesake,  my  Uncle  Lee.  I  hope  I  have  done  them  proud.  

  Abigail,  we  met  when  we  both  knew  that  we  wanted  to  pursue  graduate  

education  but  only  had  vague  ideas  of  what  that  would  entail.    Thanks  to  the  

Middletons  and,  especially,  your  parents  for  raising  such  a  lovely  daughter  and  for  

supporting  us  in  every  way.  Thank  you  for  the  quiet,  private  world  we  have  built  

together  with  Baron  and  Gypsy.  Thank  you  for  being  strong  and  keeping  my  head  

level  as  I  threw  myself  into  my  work,  and  thanks,  most  of  all,  for  loving  me  

regardless  of  the  outcome  it.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

                               

  xiii  

TABLE  OF  CONTENTS    

                     Dedication                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    iii    Abstract                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              iv    Acknowledgements                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  vi    Introduction                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                1    Chapter  1—Making  the  Crash  Barrier:  Medical  Authority,  Engineering  Culture,  and  Bureaucratic  Practice  in  American  Automotive  Safety                                                                                                              30                        Chapter  2—Constructing  Standard  201  and  the  Limiting  of  Federal  Automotive  Safety  Regulations                                                                                                        62    Chapter  3—The  Banality  of  Justice                                                                                                      113                                                    Chapter  4—Organizing  Federal  Automotive  Emissions  Control:  Bureaucratic  Change  as  a  Strategic  Enterprise                                                                                                                                  194    Chapter  5—Establishing  the  State  of  the  Art:  Administering  the  Clean  Air  Act  of  1970,  1972-‐1973                                                        265    Chapter  6—  The  Long  Road  to  Federal  Fuel  Economy  Standards:  Capabilities-‐Building,  Bureaucratic  Self-‐Defense,  and  the  Fine  Art  of  Gamesmanship                                    323    Epilogue                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    380    Bibliography                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    406  

 

  1  

Introduction    

 Sometime  during  the  week  of  January  16,  1967,  in  New  York  City,  Henry  Ford  

II,  the  grandson  of  the  founder  of  Ford  Motor  Company,  gave  a  speech  before  the  

National  Retail  Merchants  Association,  a  trade  group  for  retail  businesses.  Ford  II’s  

theme  was  the  dangerous  precedent  that  federal  regulation  was  setting.  He  warned  

the  audience  that  there  were  “strong  signs”  that  recently  imposed  regulations  would  

be  only  the  beginning.1    The  federal  government  was  beginning  to  take  control  of  

automobile  design,  he  said.2    Soon  these  regulations  could  lead  to  “a  total  ban  on  the  

internal  combustion  engine,  the  development  under  government  auspices  of  

alternative  power  sources,  and  public  policies  to  force  people  in  metropolitan  areas  

out  of  private  cars  and  into  public  transit  facilities,”  he  cautioned.    If  audience  

members  were  deluding  themselves  that  this  was  only  a  problem  in  the  auto  

industry,  they  should  wake  up,  Ford  II  insisted.  “Similar  things  are  happening  in  the  

food  and  drug  industries,  in  finance  and  insurance,  in  advertising  and  retailing.  In  

virtually  every  industry,  government  looms  increasingly  large  between  business  and  

its  customers,  its  employees,  its  shareholders,  and  the  general  public.”    Ford  II  

reminded  the  audience  not  to  turn  the  matter  into  an  issue  of  “good  guys  vs.  bad  

guys.”  The  point,  he  claimed,  was  to  draw  a  firm  line  between  the  responsibilities  of  

                                                                                                               1  The  following  statements  of  Henry  Ford  II  are  quoted  from  “Ford  Cites  ‘Strong  Signs’  of  New  Federal  Inroads,”  Automotive  News,  January  16,  1967.  2  The  Automotive  News  ran  several  stories  on  the  production  of  automobiles  in  the  USSR’s  command-‐and-‐control  economy  during  this  period,  often  emphasizing  that  automobile  design  was  state  controlled  in  the  Soviet  Union.    In  this  way,  talk  of  the  US  government  mandating  automobile  design  could  be  tantamount  to  “red-‐baiting,”  insinuating  that  federal  programs  were,  in  effect,  “socialism.”  

 

 

2  

government  and  the  responsibilities  of  industry.  In  Ford  II’s  view,  this  line  was  the  

very  thing  government  was  trying  to  undo.  

A  few  weeks  earlier,  on  January  2,  1967,  Automotive  News,  a  trade  newspaper  

whose  primary  audience  was  car  dealers,  announced  that  its  editorial  staff  had  

voted  “auto  safety”  as  the  top  news  story  of  1966.3  The  second-‐place  story  of  1966  

concerned  Ralph  Nader,  a  young  lawyer  who  was  a  chief  architect  of  federal  auto  

safety  regulations.      In  1965,  Nader  had  published  a  book,  Unsafe  at  Any  Speed,  an  

exposé  about  the  lack  of  safety  features  and  the  presence  of  “designed-‐in”  dangers  in  

automobiles.  The  book  paid  special  attention  to  the  Chevrolet  Corvair,  a  sporty  

coupe  that  Nader  said  had  “some  remarkable  characteristics”:  “It’s  one  of  the  few  

cars  I  know  that  can  do  the  Bossa  Nova  on  dry  pavement  and  the  Watusi  on  wet.”4  

Passage  of  the  federal  auto  safety  law,  the  Traffic  Safety  Act  of  1966,  was  virtually  

guaranteed  when  Congress  learned  that  General  Motors  had  hired  a  private  

investigator  to  examine  Nader’s  private  life,  including  his  sexuality  and  whether  he  

was  anti-‐Semitic.    The  third-‐place  story  at  Automotive  News  had  to  do  with  the  

decline  in  car  sales  in  1966.    A  series  written  by  Joseph  M.  Callahan,  the  engineering  

editor  of  Automotive  News,  came  in  fourth.  The  series,  titled  “The  Billion-‐Dollar  

Smog  Hoax,”  eventually  ran  to  over  thirty  pieces.  In  it,  Callahan  skewered  what  he  

saw  as  the  fraud  science  of  smog  and  its  health  effects,  claiming  both  that  scientists  

had  not  established  the  dangers  of  smog  and  that  automotive  emission  controls  

were  unnecessary.    Thus,  three  of  the  editors’  top  four  choices  for  1966  were  related  

                                                                                                               3  John  K.  Teahen  Jr.,  “’Safety’  Voted  Top  News  of  ’66,”  Automotive  News,  January  2,  1967.  4  Quoted  from  archival  video  footage  of  Nader  speaking  in  the  documentary  film,  An  Unreasonable  Man  (2006).  

 

 

3  

to  federal  regulation.    In  the  same  January  2  issue,  the  publisher  of  the  paper,  Pete  

Wemhoff,  wrote  an  open  letter  to  auto  dealers,  warning,  “The  auto  industry  is  in  

trouble—deep  trouble,  and  not  solely  because  of  declining  sales.  The  industry  has  

again  become  the  favorite  ‘whipping  boy’  of  Washington  politicians  and  

bureaucrats,  do-‐gooders,  and  some  elements  of  the  press.”  He  then  admonished  the  

dealers  to  contact  their  congressmen.  “Today’s  crisis  in  the  auto  industry  is  not  just  

the  makers’  problem—it’s  yours,  too.”  Clearly,  federal  regulations  threatened  the  

auto  industry—from  the  most  powerful  inheritor  of  an  auto  manufacturer  to  the  

lowly  auto  dealer.    

This  dissertation  examines  the  history  of  federal  regulation  of  the  automobile  

in  the  United  States  around  crash  safety,  emissions  control,  and  fuel  efficiency.    It  

builds  on  the  work  of  other  historians,  who  have  been  studying  regulatory  history  

for  decades.5    Where  most  previous  histories  of  regulation  have  focused  either  on  

the  biographies  of  “policy  entrepreneurs,”  who  imagine  a  new  regulatory  regime,  or  

on  the  legislation  that  enabled  a  regulation,  this  work  takes  a  different  tack:  it  

examines  how  federal  civil  servants  managed  the  regulations  with  which  they  were  

charged.  I  examine  two  aspects  of  this  process,  namely  how    federal  administrators  

built  the  capabilities  of  their  agencies—both  human  and  physical—and  then  how  

they  used  those  capabilities  to  create  and  enforce  regulations.    I  focus  on  two                                                                                                                  5  Thomas  McCraw  “Regulation  in  America:  A  Review  Article,”  The  Business  History  Review,  Vol.  49,  No.  2  (Summer,  1975),  159-‐183;  idem.,  Prophets  of  Regulation:  Charles  Francis  Adams,  Louis  D.  Brandeis,  James  M.  Landis,  Alfred  E.  Kahn  (Cambridge,  Mass.:  Harvard  University  Press,  1984);  David  Vogel’s  “The  ‘New’  Social  Regulation  in  Historical  and  Comparative  Perspective”  in  Regulation  in  Perspective:  Historical  Essays,  Thomas  K.  McCraw,  ed.  (Cambridge,  Mass.:  Harvard  University  Press,  1981),  155-‐185;  Richard  H.  K.  Vietor,  Contrived  Competition:  Regulation  and  Deregulation  in  America  (Cambridge,  Mass.:  The  Harvard  University  Press,  1994);  Stephen  W.  Usselman,  Regulating  Railroad  Innovation:  Business,  Technology,  and  Politics  in  America,  1840–1920  (Cambridge:  Cambridge  University  Press,  2002).  

 

 

4  

regulatory  agencies:    a  division  of  the  Department  of  Transportation  known  as  the  

National  Highway  Safety  Bureau  (NHSB),  which  was  renamed  the  National  Highway  

Traffic  Safety  Administration  (NHTSA)  in  1970,  and  the  Office  of  Mobile  Source  Air  

Pollution  Control,  a  bureau  within  the  Environmental  Protection  Agency.    Today,  

this  latter  bureau  is  known  as  the  Office  of  Transportation  and  Air  Quality.    

 

The  Performance  Standard  as  a  Liberal  Technology  of  Governance  

  The  hazards  of  technique  are  a  universal  aspect  of  human  experience.    Fire,  

one  of  the  simplest  of  human  “tools,”  burned  human  hands,  blackened  lungs,  and  

polluted  the  air  long  before  the  rise  of  agriculture,  let  alone  modern  society.    People  

doubtlessly  injured  themselves  while  making  stone  tools,  just  as  they  were  certainly  

hurt  while  building  ancient  monumental  structures,  such  as  pyramids  and  temples.    

The  dangers  of  technology  are  as  indifferent  to  political  economy  as  they  are  to  

history.    Socialist  countries  have  fouled  their  natural  environments  and  disabled  

their  workers  just  as  effectively  and  prolifically  as  capitalist  ones.    Air  pollution  has  

never  bothered  to  learn  the  distinction  between  constitutional  monarchies  and  

republics.    Images  of  Chinese  citizens  strolling  through  their  cities  while  wearing  

anti-‐pollution  facemasks  take  their  place  next  to  photographs  of  Cleveland’s  

Cuyahoga  River  ablaze.    

  Yet,  each  society  in  human  history  has  chosen  to  control  or  regulate  

technological  risk  differently.  The  opposite  extremes  of  governance  are  banning  a  

technique  or  technology  outright  and  allowing  them  to  go  on  unfettered  (permission  

can  equally  be  a  kind  of  governance).  But  within  this  broad  swath  of  limitation,  

 

 

5  

governments,  or  states,  have  developed  a  wide-‐variety  of  “tools”  to  rein  in  

technology.    From  pouring  money  into  researching  safe  technologies  to  creating  

draconian  laws  against  people  who  harm  others,  authorities  have  sought  ways  to  

alleviate  technology’s  problems  while  retaining  its  benefits.        

In  the  United  States,  the  car  is  the  ultimate  liberal  technology.    Liberalism  is  a  

political  philosophy  founded  on  the  centrality  of  the  individual,  on  “rights,”  or  

freedom  from  coercion,  the  ability  to  make  one’s  own  decisions  as  long  as  those  

decisions  don’t  impinge  on  another’s  ability  to  make  his  or  her  own  decisions,  and  

so  on.  Implicit  in  this  idea  is  an  image  of  life  lived  independently.  In  the  United  

States,  this  image  fostered  a  specific  desire  for  a  stand  alone,  single-‐family  house  

free  of  the  density,  noise,  and  dinginess  of  urban  spaces.    As  transportation  

technologies  increasingly  improved  over  the  course  of  the  late  19th  and  20th  

centuries,  people  began  moving  out  of  urban  centers  to  “suburbs,”  and  the  suburbs  

became  the  great  liberal  geography.  The  “streetcar  suburbs”  were  an  early  

development,  preceded  by  strips  built  along  rail  lines,  horse  cars,  and  other  

transportation  systems.6  Wealthy  businessmen,  the  only  ones  who  could  afford  such  

luxuries,  began  buying  property  in  suburbs  as  the  streetcar  allowed  them  to  

commute  between  their  downtown  workplaces  and  their  distant  homes  in  a  

reasonable  and  formerly  unthinkable  amount  of  time.  In  the  Post-‐World  War  II  era,  

however,  suburban  development  was  almost  completely  based  around  the  

                                                                                                               6  Sam  Bass  Warner,  Street  Car  Suburbs:  The  Process  of  Growth  in  Boston,  1870–1900  (Cambridge:  Harvard  University  Press,  1962);  Clay  McShane,  The  Horse  in  the  City:  Living  Machines  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  (Baltimore:  The  John  Hopkins  University  Press,  2007).  

 

 

6  

automobile.  The  car  became  a  central  pillar  of  the  “American  Dream,”  embodying  

home  and  land  ownership  and  independence.      

But  the  car  is  liberal  beyond  its  ability  to  foster  an  independent  life:  it  is  also  

a  hallmark  of  individuality.7  In  one  of  his  radio  addresses  in  the  late-‐1970s,  the  

future  president  Ronald  Reagan  said,  “Personally  I’ve  always  believed  the  

automobile  gave  us  one  of  the  truly  last  great  freedoms.    For  the  first  time  the  

ordinary  man  could  go  where  he  wanted  to  go,  when  he  wanted  to,  choose  his  own  

departure  and  arrival  time  free  at  last  from  timetables  and  fixed  routes.”8  If  the  

automobile  played  an  important  role  in  the  financial  economy,  it  was  also  a  central  

character  in  the  libidinal  economy.    Once  an  object  of  wealthy  conspicuous  

consumption,  the  vehicle  had  become  democratized.    Teens  learned  to  love  in  the  

backseat  of  their  parents’  cars.    Cruising,  or  driving  slowly  up  and  down  a  town’s  

main  drag,  became  a  weekend  pastime.    Backyard  mechanics  built  or  modified  cars,  

creating  hotrods  and  lowriders.  The  automobile  became  a  central  part  of  the  how  

people  imagined  freedom  in  the  United  States.  Building  on  earlier  ideas  of  the  

frontier  and  the  liberating  potential  of  the  railroad,  in  films  and  popular  songs,  the  

paired  technologies,  the  car  and  the  open  road,  allowed  one  to  escape  the  confines  

of  tradition,  repressive  community,  and  even  the  “dysfunctional”  family.  In  his  song  

“Thunder  Road,”  songwriter  Bruce  Springsteen  paints  the  picture  of  a  young  man  

and  woman  living  in  a  broken,  stultifying,  nowhere  town.  He  sings,      

                                                                                                               7  For  the  automobile’s  deep  connection  to  individualism,  see  James  J.  Flink,  “Three  Stages  of  American  Automobile  Consciousness,”  American  Quarterly,  Vol.  24,  No.  4  (Oct.,  1972),  451-‐473  8  Kiron  K.  Skinner,  Annelise  Anderson,  and  Martin  Anderson,  eds.,  Reagan’s  Path  to  Victory:  The  Shaping  of  Ronald  Reagan’s  Vision:  Selected  Writings  (New  York:  Free  Press,  2004),  237.  

 

 

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Well,  now,  I'm  no  hero  That's  understood  All  the  redemption  I  can  offer,  girl  Is  beneath  this  dirty  hood  With  a  chance  to  make  it  good  somehow  Hey  what  else  can  we  do  now  Except  roll  down  the  window  And  let  the  wind  blow  back  your  hair  Well  the  night's  busting  open  These  two  lanes  will  take  us  anywhere  We  got  one  last  chance  to  make  it  real  To  trade  in  these  wings  on  some  wheels  Climb  in  back  Heaven's  waiting  down  on  the  tracks  Oh,  oh,  come  take  my  hand  Riding  out  tonight  to  case  the  promised  land  Oh,  oh,  Thunder  Road,  oh,  Thunder  Road    

The  male  narrator  of  the  song  warns  the  woman  he  is  wooing  that  if  she  does  not  

join  him  she  will  be  left  behind  to  nothingness,  “tonight  we’ll  be  free  .  .  .  Mary  climb  

in,  this  is  a  town  full  of  losers,  and  I’m  pulling  out  of  here.”  

  How  does  a  democratically-‐elected  government  attempt  to  control  the  

harmful  aspects  of  a  technology  that  is  so  central  to  a  “way  of  life,”  to  how  its  

citizens  imagine  themselves?    How  does  it  regulate  such  a  technology  when  the  

government  has  a  tradition  of  invading  the  activities  of  individuals  and  business  

organizations  as  little  as  possible?  In  the  United  States,  one  form  of  technological  

regulation  that  gained  prominence  in  the  20th  century  was  known  as  “performance  

standards.”  They  were  well  fitted  to  the  United  States’  liberal  society.  Performance  

standards  are  typically  contrasted  with  “design  standards”  (also  known  as  

“technology  standards”),  which  specify  the  kinds  of  technologies  firms  should  use  to  

solve  a  technical  problem.    Performance  standards,  on  the  other  hand,  simply  set  a  

given  criteria  and  allow  the  regulated  firms  to  meet  the  criteria  in  whatever  way  

 

 

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they  wish.  If  a  performance  standard  is  set  at  a  level  high  enough  that  producers  

cannot  yet  reach  it  and  have  to  “innovate”  to  do  so,  they  are  known  as  “technology-‐

forcing”  standards.  Performance  standards  allow  the  government  to  curb  targeted  

risks  without  requiring  too  heavy  a  hand—they  are  a  liberal  technology  of  

governance.  The  standards  interfere  minimally  with  the  sovereignty  of  the  

consumer  or  the  driver;  they  place  responsibility  for  reducing  the  technological  

risks  firmly  on  the  shoulders  of  producers.  But  performance  standards  also  regulate  

producers  in  a  way  that  allow  them  as  much  flexibility  as  possible.  Firms  can  meet  

the  criteria  established  in  the  standards  however  they  wish.    Thus,  this  dissertation  

examines  on  how  the  US  federal  government  used  performance  standards  to  

regulate  technological  risks  associated  with  automotive  crash  safety,  emissions  

control,  and  fuel  efficiency.  

Although  we  may  look  back  at  the  history  of  auto  regulation  and  see  

moments  set  in  stone,  nothing  could  have  prepared  the  auto  industry,  especially  the  

“Big  Three”  domestic  automobile  manufacturers,  for  the  federal  government’s  

decisive  entry.    Perhaps,  then,  it  is  best  to  begin  the  story  just  before  the  automobile  

became  the  object  of  considerable  federal  regulation,  that  is,  about  1960.    

 

The  Automobile  in  1960  

  In  1960,  the  biggest  story  the  self-‐styled  “The  Newspaper  of  the  Industry,”  

Automotive  News,  was  the  coming  of  the  compact  car.    The  Volkswagen  Beetle  was  

making  waves  during  the  mid-‐to-‐late  1950s,  and  other  foreign  automakers,  

including  Opel,  Volvo,  and  Fiat,  were  lining  up  to  get  a  piece  of  the  action.  People  

 

 

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wanted—demanded—smaller  cars  news  stories  and  editorials  said  again  and  again.  

“Market  Braces  for  Compact  Storm,”  an  article  warned.9  Automotive  News  was  no  fan  

of  the  new,  smaller  cars.  “This  is  the  compact  age,”  a  staff  editorial  admitted,  “and  it  

is  foolish  to  stay  in  business  unless  you  have  the  opportunity  to  offer  what  the  

public  wants.”  But  the  paper  warned,  “Undeniably,  the  compact  cars  have  caught  the  

imagination  of  the  public.  But  the  compact  car  is  not  the  answer  to  every  automotive  

need.”10  Another  staff  editorial  cautioned,  “Dealers  surveyed  by  Automotive  News  

predict  that  compact  cars  will  take  an  increasing  share  of  the  market.  But  don’t  sell  

your  big  car  yet.”11  A  cartoon  depicted  a  car  so  tiny  that  a  male  driver’s  and  wife’s  

derrieres  stuck  out  the  back  of  a  burst  open  trunk.      American  Motors  Corporation  

(AMC),  formed  out  of  the  merger  of  Nash  and  Hudson  Motor  Company,  had  

pioneered  the  first  domestic  compact  car.    The  AMC  Rambler  made  its  appearance  in  

1954,  giving  birth  to  a  new  “market  segment.”  Columnists  sang  praises  of  George  

Romney,  President  of  AMC,  for  saving  the  troubled  company.  The  respite  was  brief,  

however.  Within  a  few  years,  the  company  would  be  troubled  again.    Fears  that  

Americans  would  forfeit  their  large  cars  in  favor  of  more  economical  ones  also  

proved  a  bit  premature.    

  In  many  ways,  the  modern  domestic  auto  industry,  as  we  know  it  today,  had  

only  emerged  about  1960.    In  1957,  a  recession  had  set  in,  and  it  killed  many  of  

smaller  automakers,  including  Kaiser  Motors  and  Packard,  all  of  whom  had  

struggled  for  years.  Nash  and  Hudson  might  have  joined  that  crowd  had  they  not                                                                                                                  9  Robert  M.  Lienart,  “Market  Braces  for  Compact  Storm:  Fierce  Competitive  Clash  Feared  .  .  .”  Automotive  News,  July  11,  1960,  1.  10  “As  Dealers  Eye  the  Changes  in  U.S.  Auto  Market,”  Automotive  News,  April  25,  1960.  11  “Capsule  Comment,”  Automotive  News,  March  7,  1960,  12.    Italics  in  original.  

 

 

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merged  a  few  years  earlier.    It  was  a  late-‐date  shake  out,  and  the  hungry  beast  of  

efficiency  had  feasted  on  these  smaller  firms.  The  winds  of  “creative  destruction”  

left  only  the  “Big  Three”—General  Motors,  Ford,  and  Chrysler—and  a  few  small  

firms,  including  American  Motors,  Lark,  and  Studebaker-‐Packard.    Moreover,  

Chrysler,  the  Big  Three’s  red-‐headed  step  child,  faced  bankruptcy.  It  would  not  be  

the  company’s  last  experience  with  such  matters.  Most  small  automakers  crashed  on  

the  rocks.      Bigness  won.  Columnists  made  rosy  predictions  for  the  decade.  There  

would  be  new  stability  after  shake  out.    For  all  the  talk  of  compact  cars,  the  Big  

Three  automakers  formed  the  backbone  of  a  muscular  industry  that  made  muscular  

machines.      

In  1960,  President  Dwight  D.  Eisenhower  still  held  the  White  House,  and  the  

automakers  did  not  fear  government.  Indeed,  the  auto  companies  put  a  great  deal  of  

faith  in  the  federal  government,  particularly  in  road  construction,  which  found  its  

strongest  embodiment  in  the  Federal-‐Aid  Highway  Act  of  1956  .  Many  heralded  the  

increased  construction  of  highways  as  a  major  factor  in  pulling  the  nation  out  of  the  

recession  of  ’57–’58.  All  members  of  the  industry  took  great  comfort  in  this  

automotive  Keynesianism.    Automakers  knew  the  importance  of  roads.    The  

National  Highway  Users  Conference,  which  Automotive  News  called  “an  important  

arm  of  the  automotive  industry,”  put  continual  pressure  on  the  President  and  both  

houses  of  Congress.12  “Chairman  emeritus”  Alfred  P.  Sloan,  the  former  and  famous  

head  of  General  Motors,  and  other  elites  within  the  automakers  continued  to  steer  

the  group,  but  it  had  been  joined  by  an  increasing  number  of  ancillary  businesses,                                                                                                                  12  William  Ullman,  “Highway  Administration  Angers  Road  Users,”  Automotive  News,  May  23,  1960,  10.  

 

 

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including  “oil  and  tire  interests,  National  Automobile  Dealers  Assn.,  truckers,  and  

manufacturers  who  use  trucks  to  haul  their  products.”13    Municipalities,  real  estate  

agents,  and  land  developers  were  also  important  members.  The  National  Highway  

Users  Group  had  been  a  major  pressure  group  behind  the  passage  of  the  Federal-‐Aid  

Highway  Act  of  1956,  and  it  continued  to  press  the  Department  of  Commerce,  the  

agency  responsible  for  implementing  the  Act.    

William  S.  Richardson,  the  chairman  of  the  group  and  a  director  of  B.F.  

Goodrich  Co.,  said  that  he  was  “never  very  enthusiastic”  about  the  Department  of  

Commerce  being  responsible  for  the  Highway  Act,  claiming  “Personally,  I  had  hoped  

the  United  States  Commerce  would  have  established  a  National  Highway  Board.”14  

This  vision  of  an  agency  dedicated  only  to  transportation  issues  was  in  the  air.  James  

M.  Landis,  who  President-‐elect  John  F.  Kennedy  had  asked  to  write  a  report  on  

regulatory  agencies,  suggested  the  creation  of  “ministry  of  transportation.”15  But  the  

idea  would  have  to  wait  six  more  years  until  the  Johnson  administration  created  the  

Department  of  Transportation.  

  But  the  government  did  not  require  a  centralized  authority  to  make  one  thing  

true:  the  car-‐dependent  suburbs  marched  outward.16  Earlier  transportation  

technologies—such  as  the  street-‐car  and  even  the  railroad  itself—had  assisted  

homebuyers  who  sought  single-‐family  houses,  yards  as  large  as  possible,  clean  air,  

and  other  benefits  difficult  to  find  in  the  dirty  and  smoky  city.  The  automobile                                                                                                                  13  Ibid.    14  Ibid.  15  William  Ullman,  “Ray  of  Hope  Penetrates  Economic  Forecasts,”  Automotive  News,  November  28,  1960,  13.  16  Adam  Rome,  The  Bulldozer  in  the  Countryside:  Suburban  Sprawl  and  Rise  of  American  Environmentalism  (Cambridge:  Cambridge  University  Press,  2001).  

 

 

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allowed  consumers  and  developers  to  hasten—and  democratize—this  process.    The  

veterans  of  World  War  II  streamed  into  suburban  subdivisions,  most  famously  

Levittown,  New  York,  a  completely  planned,  fabricated  town.  

  Home-‐building  and  suburban  development  were  important  engines  of  

economic  “growth.”    And  though  the  automobile  had  its  part  in  this  expansion  of  

wealth  and  increased  quality  of  living,  the  car  was  an  engine  of  economic  growth  in  

its  own  right.  This  fact  had  been  realized  much  earlier.  By  the  late  1920s,  the  

National  Automobile  Chamber  of  Commerce,  which  was  formed  in  1913  and  

renamed  the  Automobile  Manufacturers  Association  in  1934,  began  publicizing  facts  

about  the  car’s  vital  role  in  the  overall  economy.    As  the  historian  Daniel  M.  Albert  

writes,  “By  1928,  automobile  manufacturing  used  18  percent  of  the  nation’s  steel,  19  

percent  of  its  wood,  23  percent  of  its  aluminum,  74  percent  of  its  glass,  and  85  

percent  of  its  rubber.”17  Not  only  those  employed  directly  by  the  automobile  

manufacturers  but  also  a  huge  number  of  people  throughout  the  nation  (and  around  

the  world)  owed  their  livelihood  to  the  US  automobile  industry.  But  these  figures  

were  not  merely  boosterism  for  the  auto  industry;  professional  economists  also  

realized  the  centrality  of  the  industry  in  the  US  economy.  In  1939,  Charles  F.  Roos  

penned  work  a  titled  The  Dynamics  of  Automobile  Demand.18  Only  two  years  earlier,  

Roos  had  published  another  book,  NRA  Economic  Planning,  in  which  he  ruminated  

on  his  experiences  as  the  director  of  research  of  the  National  Recovery  

                                                                                                               17  Daniel Marc Albert, “Order Out of Chaos: Automobile Safety, Technology, and Society, 1925 to 1965,” (Ph.D. Diss., University of Michigan, 1997), 9.  18  Charles  Frederick  Roos,  The  Dynamics  of  Automobile  Demand  (New  York:  General  Motors  Corporation,  1939).  

 

 

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Administration  (which  the  Supreme  Court  declared  unconstitutional  in  1935).19  In  

The  Dynamics  of  Automobile  Demand,  Roos,  who  originated  the  notion  of  “disposable  

personal  income,”  examined  trends  and  explanations  for  consumer  demand  for  

automobiles.  His  analysis  fit  into  the  emerging  Keynesian  belief  that  demand  would  

drive  economic  recovery.  Although  Roos  did  not  emphasize  the  automobile’s  

importance  to  the  nation’s  economy,  his  book  was  a  symptom  of  it.  The  auto  

industry  was  also  an  important  center  of  employment.    Since  Henry  Ford  instituted  

the  five-‐dollar  day  in  1914,  the  auto  industry  had  been  an  important  site  for  the  

shaping  of  labor  policy,  trade  unionism,  and  the  philosophy  that  laborers  also  played  

a  critical  role  as  consumers.20  Under  the  leadership  of  William  Reuther,  the  United  

Auto  Workers  rose  to  previously  unimagined  power  after  World  War  II.21  The  

notion  that  the  nation’s  financial  health  depended  on  the  auto  industry  found  its  

apogee  in  the  phrase,  “What’s  good  for  General  Motors  is  good  for  America,”  

famously  misattributed  to  Charles  E.  Wilson,  as  he  moved  from  being  the  head  of  GM  

to  being  Eisenhower’s  Secretary  of  Defense  in  1953.    Eisenhower’s  appointment  of  

Wilson  was  echoed  less  than  a  decade  later,  when  John  F.  Kennedy  appointed  Ford  

president  Robert  McNamara  to  the  same  position.    The  auto  industry,  the  federal  

government,  and  the  national  economy  were  all  tightly  interwoven.  

  Yet,  the  industry  was  also  changing.    New  production  techniques  entered  the  

industry,  most  famously  forms  of  “automation,”  which  threatened  and,  therefore,  

                                                                                                               19  Charles  Frederick  Roos,  NRA  Economic  Planning  (Bloomington,  Ind.:  The  Principia  Press,  1937).  20  Stephen  Meyer,  The  Five  Dollar  Day:  Labor,  Management,  and  Social  Control  in  the  Ford  Motor  Company,  1908–1921  (Albany:  State  University  of  New  York  Press,  1981).  21  Nelson  Lichtenstein,  The  Most  Dangerous  Man  in  Detroit:  Walter  Reuther  and  Fate  of  American  Labor  (New  York:  Basic  Books,  1995).  

 

 

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angered  workers.22  In  the  post-‐War  period,  automakers  quickly  moved  to  

monocoque,  or  unitized  body,  construction  in  which  the  vehicle’s  external  shell  

provided  its  structural  support,  rather  than  an  internal  frame.    Throughout  the  

period,  the  domestic  automakers  and  others  continued  to  experiment  with  

alternative  engines,  such  as  electric  engines,  the  Wankel  (or  rotary)  engine,  the  

stratified  charge  engine,  the  gas  turbine,  and  the  Rankine  engine.  Yet,  most  the  

automakers’  “innovative  activity”  went  into  the  so-‐called  “horsepower  wars,”  a  Cold  

War-‐style  “arms  race”  to  see  which  of  the  automakers  could  make  the  most  

powerful,  high-‐performing,  and  quickest  car  on  the  market.23    Meanwhile,  a  host  of  

industries  vied  for  a  piece  of  the  American  automotive  industry.  Aluminum  

manufacturers  and  steel  makers  squared  off  over  whose  product  made  the  ideal  

material  for  bumpers.    Plastics  corporations  spun  out  a  plethora  of  new  applications  

for  the  car.  The  auto  industry  was  giant  customer.  Winning  its  business  was  winning  

big.      

No  one  suffered  troubled  sleep  over  the  thought  of  serious,  strict  federal  

regulation  of  the  automobile,  or  at  least  they  did  not  confess  to  it.    In  1960,  the  US  

Congress  had  carried  out  the  first  major  hearings  on  automotive  emissions,  but  

these  hearings  received  no  detailed  coverage  from  the  press.  The  Automotive  News  

                                                                                                               22  David  F.  Noble,  Forces  of  Production:  A  Social  History  of  Industrial  Automation  (Oxford:  Oxford  University  Press,  1984);  David  A.  Hounshell,  “Planning  and  Executing  ‘Automation’  at  Ford  Motor  Company,  1945–65:  The  Cleveland  Engine  Plant  and  Its  Consequences”  in  Fordism  Transformed:  The  Development  of  Production  Methods  in  the  Automobile  Industry,  Haruhito  Shiomi  and  Kazuo  Wada,  eds.  (Oxford:  Oxford  University  Press,  1995),  49–86.  23  On the “horsepower race,” see David A. Hounshell, “Planning and Executing ‘Automation’ at Ford Motor Company,” 75–76. In the economic literature, the now classic article by Franklin M. Fisher, Zvi Grilliches, and Carl Kaysen, “The Costs of Automobile Model Changes since 1949,” The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 70, No. 5 (Oct., 1962), 433–451 gave rise to an extended discussion of the issue of the horsepower race and annual model changes.  

 

 

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staff  noted  weakly,  “Witnesses  clash  at  air-‐pollution  hearings  in  Washington.  Not  all  

the  smog  is  in  Los  Angeles.”24  This  statement,  perhaps  a  play  on  words  suggesting  

that  the  Congressional  hearing  room  was  itself  a  site  of  smog  production,  was  true  

enough:  Cities  around  the  country  were  coming  to  realize  that  they  had  serious  air  

pollution  problems.    Similarly,  California  had  passed  the  nation’s  first  automotive  

emissions  regulations,  but  few  outside  the  state  saw  these  regulations  as  a  big  deal,  

and  the  industry  took  the  news  with  a  shrug.      

In  1960,  the  automakers,  their  suppliers,  and  all  those  tied  to  the  industry  

looked  forward  with  expectantly.  They  had  no  inkling  of  what  awaited  them.    

 

How  Cars  Became  “Problems”  

  For  decades  now,  sociologists,  thinkers  in  Science,  Technology,  and  Society  

studies,  and  other  scholars  have  examined  how  issues  become  “problems”  in  

society.  25    A  core  assumption  of  such  analyses  is  that  problems  do  not  simply  arise  

on  their  own;  problems  are  not  “natural.”   Rather,  a  host  of  different  social,  

economic,  political,  and  media  factors  come  together  to  focus  the  public’s  mind  on  a  

“problem,”  or  if  the  issue  is  dire  enough,  a  “crisis.”  

                                                                                                               24  “Capsule  Comment,”  Automotive  News,  March  7,  1960,  12.    25  Joseph  R.  Gusfield,  The  Culture  of  Public  Problems:  Drinking-driving  and  the  Symbolic  Order  (Chicago:  University  of  Chicago  Press,  1981).    The  historian  of  technology  Thomas  Hughes  has  emphasized  the  role  of  problem-‐formation  in  his  examination  of  technological  change.    See  Hughes,  Networks  of  Power:  Electrification  in  Western  Society,  1880–1930  (Baltimore:  Johns  Hopkins  University  Press,  1983).  Joseph  W.  Schneider  and  Peter  Conrad  give  a  beautiful  phenomenological  reconstruction  of  how  people  come  to  realize  that  they  have  epilepsy,  a  disease  whose  very  nature  often  involves  blackouts  that  prevent  the  sufferer  from  forming  memories  of  the  event.  Their  description  has  wider  applicability  to  “problems”  that  are  not  immediately  perceivable.  Schneider  and  Conrad,  Having  Epilepsy:  The  Experience  and  Control  of  Illness  (Philadelphia,  Temple  University  Press,  1985).    

 

 

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  Following  this  train  of  thought  leads  one  to  ask,  how  and  when  did  cars  

become  problems?    The  answer  to  this  question  is  clear  enough:  cars  have  always  

been  problems.    From  their  inception,  cars  have  been  hazardous,  and  some  people  

have  always  seen  them  as  such.      

Early cars were dangerous.26 Their chassis and axles broke while the cars were

moving at full speed. Early vehicles were open-bodied; seatbelts were non-existent.

When cars crashed, drivers and passengers were often thrown from the vehicle. The risk

of driving, however, emerged simultaneously with a masculine culture based on proving

one’s manhood through feats of speed and daring. Early drivers, almost all men, were

people who embraced being “risk-takers.”27 Automobile manufacturers won attention

and good press through auto races and hill-climbing competitions. This marketing of risk                                                                                                                26 The earliest and now classic history of automotive safety is Joel W. Eastman, Safety vs. Styling: The American Automobile Industry and the Development of Automotive Safety, 1900–1966 (Lanham: University Press of America, 1984). Other classic works include James J. Flink, The Automobile Age (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1988) and William J. Abernathy, The Productivity Dilemma: Roadblock to Innovation in the Automobile Industry (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978). The work of John D. Graham, though coming primarily from a public health and policy studies perspective, provides a number of important historical insights. See, John D. Graham, “Automobile Safety: An Investigation of Occupant Protection Policies,” Ph.D. diss. Carnegie Mellon University, 1983; idem., “Saving Gasoline and Lives” in Risk versus Risk: Tradeoffs in Protecting Health and the Environment, John D. Graham and Jonathan Baert Wiener, eds. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995); idem., Auto Safety: Assessing America’s Performance (Dover, Mass.: Auburn House Publishing Company, 1989); John D. Graham, ed., Preventing Automobile Injury: New Findings from Evaluation Research (Dover, Mass.: Auburn House Publishing Company, 1988). However problematic, the best legal history of auto safety is Jerry L. Mashaw and David L. Harfst, The Struggle for Auto Safety (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990). Today, automotive history is a burgeoning field with recent works including Jeremy Packer, Mobility without Mayhem: Safety, Cars, and Citizenship (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008); David Blanke, Hell on Wheels: The Promise and Peril of America’s Car Culture, 1900–1940 (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2007); and Peter D. Norton, “Street Rivals: Jay Walking and the Invention of the Motor Age Street,” Technology and Culture, Vol. 48, No. 2 (April 2007), 331–359. 27 Sally H. Clarke, Trust and Power: Consumers, the Modern Corporation, and the Making of the United States Automobile Market (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 40-49. In the first chapter—“The Arrogance of Wealth”—of his book Auto Mania, Tom McCarthy emphasizes that early drivers were wealthy as well as being risk-takers. Owning and using a car were some of the grandest forms of conspicuous consumption during the early days of the automobile. Of course, luxury cars continue that tradition to this day. Tom McCarthy, Auto Mania: Cars, Consumers, and the Environment (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007). In her work, Taking the Wheel: Women and the Coming of the Motor Age (New York: Free Press, 1991), Virginia Scharff describes how Suffragists and other early female drivers challenged the era’s dominant notion of womanhood, a passive, frail, and easily traumatized femininity.

 

 

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could expand the market only so far, however. If the automakers wanted to sell large

quantities of cars, consumers would need to find everyday, practical uses for their

product, and they would need to feel relatively safe while doing so.

Many different actors—including “traffic engineers, traffic police, forensic

psychiatrists, and driving educators”—shaped the automobile’s new safety regime. 28

Traffic signals and laws regulated the vehicle’s use. Mandatory driver education and

driver licensing created a base of competency around the vehicle. Yet, most of these

rules and requirements were pointed at the driver and placed responsibility firmly on the

driver’s shoulders. 29 By 1960, automakers had placed few safety features in their

vehicles. Earlier, when Robert McNamara headed a division of the larger Ford Motor

Company, he had attempted to include safety features in vehicles and to make safety a

selling point, but his efforts failed, reinforcing the old Detroit mantra that “safety doesn’t

sell.”30 At the same time, the transportation system of roads and highways was growing

increasingly complex. In 1966, Lyndon Baines Johnson explained this complexity in his

signing statement for the creation of the Department of Transportation. In 1946, 31

million motor vehicles crisscrossed the nation’s roadways; by 1966, the number had

increased to 90 million, and government agencies estimated the number would grow to

120 million by 1975. With this growth in vehicle use came a great increase in collisions,

                                                                                                               28 Daniel Marc Albert, “Order Out of Chaos: Automobile Safety, Technology, and Society, 1925 to 1965,” (Ph.D. Diss., University of Michigan, 1997), especially chapters 2 and 5. 29 Jameson Wetmore, “Systems of Restraint: Redistributing Responsibilities for Automobile Safety in the United States Since the 1960s,” (Ph.D. Diss., Cornell University, 2003). 30 John A. Byrne, The Whiz Kids: The Founding Fathers of American Business—and the Legacy They Left Us (New York: Doubleday, 1993), ch. 17. The quotation is typically attributed to General Motor’s long-time President Alfred Sloan.

 

 

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and every year tens of thousands of people died on the road. Johnson called this situation

an “epidemic.” 31

The car safety epidemic had become more acute in the public’s consciousness a

year earlier with the publication of Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed.32 Automakers

had already been under considerable pressure from politicians and public interest groups.

In 1964, the auto companies voluntarily adopted seatbelts as standard equipment to head

off possible legislation.33 This move did not appease safety advocates. As the media

began to investigate accusations of the auto industry’s using private investigators to spy

on Nader, momentum gathered for federal legislation and standardization. This

movement eventually came to fruition in the Highway Safety Act of 1966, which created

the National Highway Safety Bureau (NHSB), which in turn became the National

Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in 1970. The NHSB promulgated

twenty standards in its first two years. Though the NHSB and the NHTSA have

experienced moments of strength and weakness, the Highway Safety Act created a lasting

institution to develop and support crash safety regulations.

The battle against automotive emissions has roots in the much longer and broader

history of urban smoke control efforts.34 Ironically, the car was seen as a relatively clean

technology when it was first introduced. In 1901, Ransom Olds advertised his gas-buggy

                                                                                                               31 “The White House Message on Transportation,” page 1, NARA, Record Group 416, Finding Aid UD-UP-3, Box 1, Folder 2. 32 Ralph Nader, Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile (New York: Grossman, 1965). 33 Stan Luger, Corporate Power, American Democracy, and the Automobile Industry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 66. 34 David Stradling, Smokestacks and Progressives: Environmentalists, Engineers, and Air Quality in America, 1881-1951 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999).

 

 

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as “Odorless, Noiseless, Safe.”35 It did not spew the smoke that formed the basis of suits

and movements against railroads. Nor did cars produce the odorous effluent particular to

horses.36 In matters of air pollution, the state of California led the nation on almost every

front.37 The Los Angeles basin had been seen as a paradise for motorists, but its natural

tendency toward inversions and unchecked development transformed Southern California

into the “Smog Capital” of North America.38 The science of “smog” arose from the work

of A. J. Haagen-Smit and other California-based scientists, and the California Air

Resources Board (CARB) developed the earliest auto emissions standards. The federal

government entered the scene primarily through the Clean Air Act of 1965. This law,

however, set a very low bar for emissions controls, and the US manufacturers were able

to meet the standards by making minor adjustments to their engines, leaning the fuel mix,

thereby, emitting fewer of the regulated pollutants. The federal government’s powers

were considerably strengthened through the Clean Air Amendments of 1970, also called

the Muskie Act in recognition of Maine Senator Edmund S. Muskie’s intense support of

the bill. A small office within the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare had

administered the Clean Air Act of 1965, but the 1970 Act made automotive emissions

control part of the newly organized Environmental Protection Agency, which

                                                                                                               35 Quoted in Clarke, Trust and Power, 34. Emphasis added. 36 Joel A. Tarr, “Urban Pollution: Many Long Years Ago,” American Heritage Magazine 22 (October 1971), 65–69. See also, Clay McShane and Joel A. Tarr, The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007) and Ann Norton Greene, Horses at Work: Harnessing Power in Industrial America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008). 37 James E. Krier and Edmund Ursin, Pollution and Policy: A Case Essay on California and Federal Experience with Motor Vehicle Air Pollution, 1940-1975 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977). 38 Scott Hamilton Dewey, Don’t Breathe the Air: Air Pollution and U.S. Environmental Politics, 1945-1970 (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2000), 38.

 

 

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reinvigorated already existing programs and considerably expanded new ones in the

Office of Mobile Source Pollution Control.39

Automotive fuel efficiency has the thinnest history and historiography of these

three domains. Fuel shortages around World War I drove research into ways of using

poorer quality petroleum. Charles “Boss” Kettering’s and Thomas Midgley’s discovery

of tetraethyl lead was partly a response to this situation.40 And fuel economy was always

a concern and topic of conversation for drivers. From 1936 to 1968, the Mobil Oil

Corporation sponsored the Mobil Economy Run, a coast-to-coast road test that carefully

monitored the fuel economy of stock cars. Until the 1970s, however, Americans enjoyed

the fruits of cheap fuel, and their lifestyle became dependent upon it.41 For most of that

time, the United States’ rather large domestic petroleum sources provided most of the

nation’s energy demand. Over time, however, the United States became more dependent

on foreign sources. This dependence became increasingly true as the so-called

“horsepower race” took off throughout the 1950s and 1960s, wherein, domestic

automakers greatly increased engine size and “performance,” also causing fuel

consumption to expand markedly.42 By 1973, the United States produced roughly eleven

million barrels of oil a day, but it was importing over six million barrels of crude, about

                                                                                                               39 See Krier and Ursin, Pollution and Policy, especially chapters 10 and 11; Luger, Corporate Power, 87–88. 40 For a treatment of Kettering’s creation of tetraethyl lead, see Stuart W. Leslie, Boss Kettering (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983). On the history and hazards ot tetraethyl lead, see Christopher C. Sellers, Hazards of the Job: From Industrial Disease to Environmental Health Science (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997) and Christian Warren, A Brush with Death: A Social History of Lead Poisoning (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000). 41 David Nye has argued that the “energy crisis” of the 1970s was, in fact, a crisis of middle class culture since shortages threatened the “American way of life.” David Nye, “ The Energy Crisis of the 1970s as a Cultural Crisis” in Living with America, 1946-1996, Ed. Rob Kroes and Cristina Giorcelli (Amsterdam: VU Press, 1997). 42 See Hounshell, “Planning and Executing ‘Automation’ at Ford Motor Company, 1945–65,” 75–76.

 

 

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thirty-five percent of the nation’s demand.43 When the OPEC oil embargo began on

October 17, 1973, policy makers in the United States began to scramble for ways to

conserve energy and produce new supplies. They used many means to attain this end. In

1975, Congress enacted the Energy Policy Conservation Act, which contained a section

titled, “Improving Automotive Efficiency.” The standards formed from this act

eventually became known as the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) standards.44

The management of fuel economy standards has always been a complex affair. NHTSA

technically creates and enforces the standards, but the EPA measures the cars’ fuel

efficiency as part of the agency’s emissions control efforts, and the Department of Energy

publishes the automotive fuel efficiency statistics as part of its energy information

efforts.45

 

Expertise  and  Bureaucracy  During  the  Postwar  Period  of  Institution-Building  

Both  the  New  Deal  and  World  War  II  had  shown  people  the  power  of  the  

federal  government  to  induce  change.  Socially  and  technologically,  war  efforts  had  

an  enormous  influence  on  the  status  quo.    Yet,  by  the  end  of  the  war,  the  zeal  for  

institution-‐building  and  for  state  intervention  in  society  had  waned.46    President  

                                                                                                               43 Statistics from the Energy Information Administration: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0501.html 44 The CAFE program has always faced a number of criticisms, especially the criticism that it decreases the safety of automobiles. For a representative conservative criticism of CAFE from one of the libertarian Cato Institute’s publications, see Andrew N. Kleit, “CAFE Changes, By the Numbers,” Regulation, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Fall 2002). Additionally, many economists and policy-analysts agree that the best way to spur a decrease in driving and an increase in fuel-efficient vehicles would be to levy a substantial tax on gasoline. But many also believe that such a tax is politically impossible. 45 On the federal government’s creation of energy statistics and forecasting, Lee Vinsel, “’Every Week We Find a New Devil’: The Crusade for Credible Energy Information and Analysis in an Era of Great Mistrust, 1973-77,” History and Technology, revise and resubmit. 46  Alan  Brinkley,  The  End  of  Reform:  New  Deal  Liberalism  in  Recession  and  War  (New  York:  Vintage  Books,  1996).  

 

 

22  

Dwight  D.  Eisenhower  had  little  love  for  the  civil  service,  believing  that  its  ranks  had  

been  infiltrated  and  colonized  by  New  Dealers  and  other  pro-‐spending  forces.47  

Eisenhower  began  policies  that  allowed  him  to  push  political  appointees  deeper  into  

federal  agencies,  ensuring  the  loyalty  of  people  who  held  key  positions.    Eisenhower  

had  little  faith  in  the  supposedly  “detached  objectivity”  of  experts  in  the  civil  service.  

This  mindset  nearly  inverted  with  the  election  of  John  F.  Kennedy,  and  he  

began  a  movement  towards  using  government  to  protect  consumers  and  workers.  

The  historian  Lizbeth  Cohen  has  listed  over  forty-‐two  laws  passed  from  1960  to  

1977  that  were  aimed  at  protecting  consumers.48    Kennedy  loved  and  surrounded  

himself  with  experts—the  “best  and  the  brightest,”  as  David  Halberstram  

memorably  called  them.49    The  White  House  was  hip-‐deep  in  Ivy  League  mandarins.  

Kennedy’s  appointment  of  Robert  McNamara  as  Secretary  of  Defense  was  one  

notable  example.  McNamara  held  an  MBA  from  Harvard  Business  School  and,  as  a  

faculty  member  there,  specialized  in  accounting  methods.  He  applied  his  

considerable  quantitative  skills  as  a  Captain  in  the  Air  Force’s  Office  of  Statistical  

Control  during  World  War  II.  The  Office  of  Statistical  Control  would  become  an  

important  seedbed  for  ways  of  applying  mathematical  methodologies  to  an  

increasing  number  of  problems.    George  Dantzig,  the  father  of  Operations  Research  

in  the  United  States,  also  worked  at  the  office.    After  the  war,  McNamara  went  on  to  

apply  these  methods  at  Ford  Motor  Company,  becoming  one  of  Henry  Ford  II’s  so-‐

                                                                                                               47  Francis  E.  Rourke,  “Responsiveness  and  Neutral  Competence  in  American  Bureaucracy,”  Public  Administration  Review,  Vol.  52,  No.  6  (Nov.  –  Dec.  1992),  539–546.  48  Lizbeth  Cohen,  A  Consumers  Republic:  The  Politics  of  Mass  Consumption  in  Postwar  America  (New  York:  Vintage  Books,  2003),  360.  49  David  Halberstram,  The  Best  and  the  Brightest  (New  York:  Random  House,  1972).  

 

 

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called  “Whiz  Kids”  and  eventually  rising  to  the  presidency  of  the  company,  the  

position  he  had  held  for  only  a  month  when  Kennedy  asked  him  to  become  

Secretary  of  Defense.50  

This  trust  in  experts  only  increased  when  Lyndon  Baines  Johnson  took  over  

the  presidency  after  Kennedy’s  assassination.51    Johnson  idealized  Franklin  Delano  

Roosevelt’s  New  Deal,  and  he  believed  in  the  power  of  government  to  improve  

society.  Although,  in  the  days  and  months  after  Kennedy’s  assassination,  Johnson  

attempted  maintain  a  balance  that  honored  Kennedy’s  earlier  work,  he  slowly  began  

to  move  towards  his  more  activist  conception  of  the  government’s  role  in  society.  In  

January  1964,  in  his  first  State  of  th