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C00002 00002	Comments on "Report by the Committee on Motor Vehicle Emissions"
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Comments on "Report by the Committee on Motor Vehicle Emissions"
of the National Academy of Sciences dated February 15, 1973


	These comments assume that the report has been read.

	I shall have a few technical remarks, but I mainly agree
with the Report's estimate of the technical situation, and most of
my remarks concern the policy conclusions that should be drawn
from the technological situation and from other facts that are
available.

	1. The letter of transmittal by Philip Handler, President
of the National Academy of Sciences contains a gratuitous remark,
namely, "In the long run, the truly effective mechanisms for
emission control must include a significant reduction in the number
of cars operated in the city, a solution dependent upon acceptable
public mass transit systems, and a substantial reduction in the
mean size (weight, volume, and horsepower) of those automobiles
which do function in the city, as well as, perhaps, redistribution
of the pattern of physical relationships among dwelling and
working areas.  Patently, these are relatively long-term goals,
achievement of which will require extensive, meticulous study
and planning with subsequent large public expenditures and careful
public intervention into the behavior of the private sector."

	Nothing about any of these matters is contained in the body
of the report the authors of which confine themselves almost entirely
to answering the questions they were asked.  Handler's interjection
suggests the following:

		1.1. He is using the emission issue to carry the ball
for some other social goals.  This is dishonest, because the whole
burden of the report is that the emission problem can be solved
purely by making different kinds of cars without changing how they
are used.  I am sure Handler doesn't feel dishonest about it, because
using emotion about one problem as a way of pushing one's solutions
to other problems has long been customary.  I shall speculate further
on his motives.  Perhaps he is worried about anti-scientific attitudes
among intellectuals, especially liberal politicians, and he wants to
show that the President of the National Academy of Sciences is a
good guy aware of the broad picture and not a narrow technician.  In
doing so, he may be sabotaging an attempt by the Report's authors
to answer the question they were asked and not merely provide
scientific window-dressing for their own social views as Nixon
is supposed to think.

		1.3. Handler waffles.  For example, the word "public"
in "public mass transit" is redundant unless it means publicly owned,
since no-one suggest mass transit not used by the public, but if that
is what he believes, he can't convince anyone without putting more
clearly.  Perhaps he is just being ingratiating.

		1.3. C.P. Snow is mistaken.  There are not two cultures.
The attitudes of scientists are dominated currents in the liberal
intellectual culture to which they belong.  When that culture turns
against technology so do many scientists, using their scientific
knowledge to make lawyer's briefs.

		1.3. I think Handler's ideas about what ought to be
done have the following defects: No present plan for mass transit has
any likelihood of giving the freedom of motion that the automobile
gives at a bearable cost; f