Page 12 THE BATTALION
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1977
Trust in auto makers
cut by standards delay
United Press International
DETROIT — It has been 25 years
since automobiles were tagged as
the chief cause of smog in the na
tion’s industrial cities. It will be
another 15 years before foul gases
are finally eliminated from their
tailpipes.
Many Americans can’t under
stand why it has taken so long.
“We’ve got tremendous technol
ogy, we can send men to the moon
and we’ve made tremendous ad
vances in medicine,” said John
Tobin of Lisbon, Maines, where air
pollution is not the problem it is in
New York or Los Angeles.
Tobin, among average Americans
queried in a nationwide UPI survey,
speculated that “we could have a
much better substitute for an engine
than we have now” but the car mak
ers “have set their own timetable.”
“They’re going to do things their
own way, he said. “They’re just not
trying hard enough.”
In 1970, years after government
regulators determined tailpipe
emissions must be lessened. Con
gress decreed that stringent clean
air laws should take effect in 1975.
Detroit automakers claimed they
needed 10 years instead of five and
were able to delay the standards
until 1981 in a classic business-
government confrontation.
Asked if the auto industry would
seek more delays. Ford Chariman
Henry Ford II, known for his
straightforward answers, said, “No.
“We’d like to stay out of Washing
ton forever,” said Chrysler Execu
tive President R. K. Brown.
It will be the early T990s before
the 110 million cars on the road
are “clean” because the average car
life is just over 10 years and the
toughest standards don’t take effect
until 1981. In fact, there are millions'
of Americans still driving pre-1970
models with none of the built-in pol
lution controls Detroit and Con
gress have fought over.
In the last decade, Detroit lost
the confidence of its customers. Its
word is of little weight in Washing
ton and the 10-year skirmish over
clean air standards has set the stage
for similar confrontations over safety
and fuel economy standards.
“In looking at it in hindsight, I
don’t know what we should have
done differently,” said E. M.
"Pete” Estes, the engineer-pres
ident of General Motors Corp., the
world’s largest auto company.
Admitting the industry has a tre
mendous credibility problem, Estes
said it is impossible to legislate
technological advances.
“This is a thing that no one under
stands except some dirty-hands en
gineers like me who have had their
noses knocked off and been burned
a little bit a few times and are more
careful in making predictions,”
Estes said in a recent interview.
“There are two ways to approach
the problem. One is to be optimistic
and fail and the other is to be pes
simistic and then beat your forecast.
“There is no way I know to hit the
middle ground that everyone is
Washington and everyone in the
country would like us to do. And
Middle finger
not ‘obscene’
court decides
that’s to be able to say: ‘That’s it. By
1983, we’re going to be able to do
this with fuel economy and that with
cost and this with emissions.’
“There is no way in God’s world
to do that. Sometimes we go over
the top and sometimes we fall flat on
our face.”
It all started a quarter of a century
ago when the late Dutch-born Dr.
Arie Jan Haagen-Smit of the
California Institute of Technology
labeled automobiles as the chief
cause of the smog that blanketed
Los Angeles.
Soft energy urged
United Press International
DENVER — The nation’s deci
sion to emphasize coal and nu
clear power as replacements for
dwindling oil and gas supplies
rather than using renewable
“soft” technologies could lead to
economic and environmental dis
aster, physicist Amory Lovins
said Tuesday.
In an address to the Society for
Petroleum Engineers, Lovins
said the disadvantages of “soft”
sources such as solar, wind and
thermal power have been over
played and problems with “hard”
sources ignored.
Creating the technology and
industry necessary to utilitize
coal and nuclear power, he said,
will require a $1 trillion invest
ment by 1985, a figure which will
devastate the economy.
“We already know enough to
begin the transition to soft energy
sources.”
Other advantages of solar,
thermal and other similar sources
include less lead time needed for
development, a low risk of failure
and less tax money required for
development, he said.
Briscoe wants inquiry
United Press International
AUSTIN—Gov. Dolph Briscoe
Tuesday asked Attorney General
Griffin Bell to order a federal inves
tigation into the death of Joe Campos
Torres, who drowned while in the
custody of Houston police officers.
Briscoe urged the U.S. Justice
Department chief to order an in
quiry to determine if Torres’ civil
rights were violated before he
drowned in a Houston bayou on May
6.
Two former Houston policemen
were found guilty Thursday of beat
ing the 23-year-old Vietnam veteran
after he was arrested for drunkeness
and of pushing him into the bayou.
An all-white jury in Huntsville,
however, convicted Stephen Or
lando, 22, and Terry Denson, 27, of
the lesser charge of negligent
homicide and gave them suspended
one-year sentences.
“The alleged action of these police
officers, and possible others, in the
treatment of Torres following his ar
rest presents a question of whether
federal law was violated, Briscoe
said in his letter to Bell.
Briscoe noted the maximum sen
tence permitted under Texas law for
the misdemeanor offense of negli
gent homicide is one year in jail and a
$2,000 fine but both officers received
suspended sentences fr 0m
Huntsville jury.
“Peace officers are charged
the duty of protecting all pe Rt ,
their custody and assuring that
receive the protection guaraifr
them by the Constitution and
laws of the United States,” the
ernor said.
Briscoe requested a similar^
investigation earlier in the case
Castroville town marshal vv]
handed a 10-year aggravated „
sentence by a San Angelo juryfo
shotgun slaying of
Mexican-American prisoner,
United Press International
HARTFORD, Conn.—Giving
someone “the digitus impudicus—
otherwise known as “the finger—
may be offensive but it’s not
obscene, a Superior Court says.
The case published today in the
Connecticut Law Journal involved
an “anonymous” high school stu
dent, who was arrested after extend
ing his middle finger in the direction
of a state policeman.
According to an appellate review
of the case, the student was riding a
school bus that was stopped at an
intersection.
A state trooper pulled up to the
rear of the bus and the boy wiped the
condensation off the rear window,
waved a pal over and proceeded to
make the gesture toward the
trooper.
“The trooper waited for the bus
driver to turn off the flashing red
lights, whereupon the officer turned
on his siren, pulled the bus over to
the side of the road, boarded the bus
and arrested the defendant,” the
court said.
The youth was convicted in the
Court of Common Pleas as a youthful
offender for having made “an
obscene gesture” and appealed to
the Superior Court. The higher
court overturned the conviction and
ruled the boy innocent.
The Superior Court said in its
unanimous ruling that to be obscene
“the gesture must be, in a significant
way, erotic and must appeal to pru
rient interest in sex or portray sex in
a patently offensive way.”
The court noted the use of the “di
gitus impudicus,” or the middle
finger, as a disrespectful gesture is of
ancient origin and that Diogenes, a
Greek Cynic philosopher who lived
in the fourth century B.C., is said to
have insulted the orator De
mosthenes with it.
“It can hardly be said that the
finger gesture is likely to arouse sex
ual desire. The more likely response
is anger,” the court said.
“Because the charge and the proof
were limited to making an obscene
gesture the defendant’s conviction
cannot stand,” the decision con
cluded.
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