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But dont blame this on the EPA. I could hear everyone bitching about the EPA if we all lived next to a toxic waste dump, or if you lived somewhere like Pittsburgh, PA in the early 1900s where pollution was so bad you could barely see the sun. Without some kind of emmission controls, there would be more respiratory health problems in the US, so just be glad that the underappreciated people at the EPA (my wife is one) are out there protecting you. Would you all like to go back to the 60's, where everyone was spewing lead into the air with each fillup? I also would like to find a solution, but I think that falls on the shoulders of our auto manufacturers coming up with systems and parts that dont crap out every 18,ooo miles.
Oh please. Don't attempt to lump the absurd position the EPA is taking on NOx emissions with legitimate pollution regulation. No one said anything about the underappreciated people at the EPA or blamed the poor reliability of the egr on the EPA. The EPA's function is a much needed regulatory function - but it needs competent leadership who can demonstrate it by their results that they know how to implement workable policy that actually does what its supposed to do. The NOx emission policy is indirectly responsible for these attempts to control burn temperatures with egr - SCR and plasma technologies are at least 3 years away from widespread manufacture and adoption. The EPA is not responsible for DC 's quality nor did anyone ever say so. But had they looked at what those with 2 decades of diesel experience (Europe) ahead of the US did, with an open mind, they might have come up with a less draconian emissions policy.
Instead, we have the absurd determination by many within the EPA that NOx is the major contributor to smog formation, in the face of real world evidence, as well as scientific study, that directly contradicts that position and in fact may worsen pollution. This is what many object to - as well as the dogged determinedness of the EPA to stick to their agenda instead of proposing alternative strategies.
There are always good people in any organization, even those with self serving leadership running the organization. The position of the EPA that is so objectionable is the "pick and choose the results of test I want to validate my position" is what I'm referring to. The EPA is an organization like any other standards body, filled with people, some with good intentions and some with other agendas - abuse of power can occur wherever people can make decisions without feedback on performance from the people paying their salaries - in this case, the taxpayers.
Don't confuse the good that the EPA of 30 years ago, with some different personnel at the helm, with the agenda they demonstrate today. While there are some good projects occuring there, the consistent mesasage and regulations have been largely political in nature and not entirely backed by demonstrable good science. If you doubt that, consider what Europeans scientists determined - that CO2 is far more damaging than NOx and worked out a far more progressive schedule for emissions control that is actually achievable than that of EPA. I'm not referring to the Kyoto treaty here either, with its loopholes big enough to drive a country through, (China comes to mind), while others paid the price of admission for the rest of the world.
You've made a huge leap back to the dark ages with pollution going unchecked and auto and other manufacters running rampant with abuses and equated the good the EPA did in the 70's to the nonsense they're putting out today. It's not even close. The abuses from companies went on until some mandated changes were made and rightly so. The EPA is not an all knowing, monolithic organization filled with scientists, completely objective, openly soliciting opposing scientific veiwpoints, whose sole mission in life is to reduce pollution in an achievable manner. If you think that, look at the huge disparity between rules for gasolene and diesel, and the almost religous quest for electric-gas hybrids from the EPA. Before you think I'm assuming the entire EPA is out of touch with current technology and incompetent, I don't - just most of their leadership, acting as though they have autonomy and can issue regulations with impunity.
There was a time when EPA rules were absolutely validated - like the Love canal incident, the absolute destruction of innocent lives due to the same kind of personal agenda, i.e. self serving thinking occuring at the company that polluted that section of land as is currently going on at the top levels of EPA. Note that I said both had self serving agendas, not identical agendas. Both had leadership with issues. Human agendas, when in conflict with common sense, good science and progressive implementation, are just as damaging and self serving when they occur at EPA as when they do at Dow Chemical, GM or Toyota.
No, I will not be glad the EPA is doing what it is currently doing when they behave as they have been the last decade or so. As time goes by, people change, knowledge changes, and organizations change. I don't like what DC did quality wise on the egr system anymore than the policy the EPA has phased in on NOx. Both are subpar.