SMOGTOWN Co-Author Chip Jacobs on President Obama's Auto Emission Policy

Chip Jacobs, author of Smogtown with William J. Kelly, takes part in a New York Times roundtable online, discussing President Obama’s decision to allow states to enact anti-global warming auto emission standards stricter than federal rules: "On Nov. 2, 1967, when Obama and I were both little kids, California became the first ever to win the authority to ramp up anti-smog standards, and there was jubilation from Sacramento to Santa Monica. Today, those standards, which many others have copied around the world, have helped make California cars 99 percent cleaner than they used to be. You would’ve figured the American automakers would’ve embraced the message Californians sent. You might’ve thought they would’ve done what the Japanese car makers did: start building cleaner cars cleaner from the production lines up. For all that, Ford, G.M. and Chrysler apparently heard a different tune, and perhaps the distress they’re in now is another word for karma."