41 OPINION Page 4 Wednesday, February 10, 1982 The Michigan Daily I Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Saving the Clean Air Act Vol. XCII, No. 108 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board Another student obsession A MERICA'S growing obsession with money has finally invaded our college campuses and the students who inhabit them. It seems as if students have turned their backs on their normal idealism and instead plunged into the current financial pragmatism of the age. A nationwide survey recently revealed that this year's college fresh- person class is more obsessed with making money when they graduate than any other class in recent memory. Sixty percent of those surveyed at universities around the nation said they thought being financially "well off" was a major, if not the major goal, in their college and post-college. careers. This attitude, which already dominates the thoughts of most working Americans, seems to be the one concern that students should be avoiding, not embracing. Certainly making money is important, and so is having the abundant luxuries of American middle-class life, but basing one's educational experience on how to achieve financial security appears hypocritical. The college years are a time when students should be able to educate themselves unhindered by the nagging concerns of financial well-being. Students should devote some planning to their future career, but the broadening of horizons is equally im- portant. College provides people with the chance to learn about subjects they may never again encounter. If one is limited to a narrow vocational field too early' in life, then a closed-minded future is bound to follow. When students ,eventually graduate into the turmoil of everyday life they will discover that money-and all that is associated with money-is a driving force behind their lives. Then they will realize too late that broadening their educational perspectives in college, while they had the chance, could have been a truly enlightening experience. By Steven Dobbs Pardon our ignorance, but we thought this issue was solved over a decade ago. The Clean Air Acts of 1965, 1970, and 1977 all stamped the protection of the public welfare from air pollution into the fabric of American law. So what is the problem, you might ask? THE PROBLEM IS that the Federal Clean Air Act has come under attack from the Reagan_ administration, the auto industry, and the utility companies. If these anti-en- vironment types succeed in gutting the Clean Air Act, the effectiveness of the act to protect the public health will be destroyed. For example, the auto industry wants to ease the carbon monoxider(CO) emission standard from 3.4 grams per car mile to 7 grams per car mile, and the oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emission standard from 1 gram per car mile to 2 grams per car mile. In other words; the auto industry wants to double the amount of pollution that comes out of our nation's cars. The industry claims that loosening these standards is needed to get the auto industry back on it's feet. According to the major car companies, the easing of CO and NOx standards will allow manufacturers to reduce car prices, thus improving the sales of American-made cars. However, there are several problems with this line of reasoning. First, since foreign cars must meet the same standards as American cars, emission standards for foreign auto makers will also be relaxed and they will be able to further reduce their already. lower prices. Second, the pollution device the industry wants to eliminate is a fuel-saving computer that actually saves the public's money-on inefficient gas consumption. Last, the easing of CO and NOx standards will allow the Ford Motor Company to reduce its car prices by only $80, and General Motors to reduce its car prices by only $360. When you consider that the average cost of a car is close to $10,000, an $80 to $360- reduction is negligible. AT A RECENT news conference Philip ployment in pollution control activities. This is in comparison to the 24,971 jobs lost by plants being closed partially due to environ- mental regulations. Also, over 7 million sick days are saved annually due to the Clean Ari Act. More importantly the federal Clean Air Act is a health-based standard, regardless of cost. The act is designed to protect everyone, based on the principle that all Americans have the right to breathe clean air. For most healthy people air pollution is not a serious problem, but for 20 percent to 30 percent of the population (45 to 68 million Americans), it can be a matter of life and death. This group of people, more sensitive to air pollution than the average person, consists of children, the elderly, pregnant women, people with asth- ma, diet deficiencies, and especially those with heart and lung disease. Illness is expensive. The loss of crops and the deterioration of buildings from corrosive pollutants is expensive. Hospitalization for lung and heart disease is expensive. And the cost of cleaning up the mess we make in our environment will be far more expensive in the long run than the cost of preventing the mess- in the first place. A recent Environmental Protection Agency study estimates the monetary benefits of the Clean Air Act totbe $13.1 billion as compared to the costs of the act, which amount to $3.9 billion. What the economists and industrialists don't seem to understand is that the Clean Air Act has been- improving the quality of our nation's air for more than a decade, with' significant results-almost 8Q percent of the cars produced today meet the present emission standards. Why go backwards now? A recent Harris Poll indicates that 80 percent. of the American public supports the extension ofrthe Clean Air Act as it is; many even want stricter controls. Dobbs is chairperson of the Public In- terest Research Group in Michigan's clean air'Task force. Fuming cars on an Ann Arbor road. Caldwell, chairman of Ford, actually admit- ted that "a hundred dollars, or anything ap- proximating $100 (does not solve) the problem that the companies have. . . from the standpoint of the consumer, I think we have ample evidence that $100 will do ap- proximately nothing when rebates that are out there are $500 to $1,000 a car." Many auto analysts have voiced -the even more pessimistic view that prices would have to go down ten percent to have any significant im- pact on new car sales. The argument used to back up the proposed relaxation of the federal Clean Air Act is that the bill has been responsible for slowing down the economy by requiring the use of expen- sive pollution controls. In reality, the bill had little overall effect on the economy, and has, in fact, created 677,900 jobs in direct em- Neglecting abortions S INCE A 1973 Supreme Court ruling, abortion has been a legal option for all American women, but President Reagan's "New Federalism" proposals may now limit that choice to women who can afford it. Undef "New Federalism" economic,u trade-offs, Washington will turn over, several social programs to the states, while assuming responsibility for the state's share of the state Medicaid program. But once Medicaid comes completely under the realm of federal control, the consequences for Medicaid-funded abortions may be disastrous. In- the past, Congress virtually legislated federal funds for abortions out of existence when in 1976 it passed the Hyde amendment. This amen- dment prohibited federally-funded abortions for Medicaid recipients, ex- cept in rare cases when the mother's life was endangered. The entire matter was thus thrown- into the lap of the states. The states, however, responded feebly to this responsibility. Fourteen states decided to allot Medicaid funds for abortions; the rest scrapped their support altogether. The effects upon lower income women were sharply felt. Medicaid-funded abortions drop- ped by nearly a third. Worse is in store for women with low incomes if "New Federalism" pulls the states out of Medicaid. Because of the Hyde "amendment, the federal government will be legally barred from providing funds' for Medicaid abortions. Shifting Medicaid to federal control will, in effect, set'up a deplorable double standard. The federal gover- nment simultaneously will be charged with upholding the legality of abortions for all women through the judiciary, while withholding the economic assistance necessary for poor women to exercise that same right. Abortion may thus become too expensive for an entire class of American women. The "New Federalism" swap seems destined to put an end to Medicaid- unded abortions. By implementing such a plan, the federal government will play a cruel hoax upon economically disadvantaged women-by offering them the right to an abortion, while at the same time denying them the opportunity. Weasel By Robert Lence KARL-A, YoOkE t AN INTEwCENT t soN. WAY T You WASTE YOOK TfME WATCM9b 7HCSE TMHY SOAP OPERAS? HAVE oo EVER SEEN aNr: ?. OR .... Acn Wtl - No. IAEN 14c w CAN YOO J'UU6E P4? L.00K, WHY Y0.5 GOME- Bkr- WIM ME TO KI APAR(MEW AND MtAU SO ME SOAPS? / lT CRNE KaM . l 50 Y R4" AS ! OKAYS fli S A SCRi)5SUIT' 15 SoN EboP' SICK?~ h7%U I,1 SEIOuS "SOAP WATcWRf(6' LJ T S EE, WEil.. NEEDI I LETTERS TO THE DAILY: Chapman: Astonishing artistic ignorance 0 To the Daily: In attacking Andrew Chap- man's essay in the Daily (Feb. 6) bemoaning the state of the arts in America, I hardly know where to begin. The piece contains so many misconceptions and fallacies that it would scarcely be possible to enumerate them. First of all, Chapman seems totally unaware of the distinction between art and popular culture. In citing the sad situation in the arts, he refers frequently to television and movies. Just what does Chapman expect? Most television programs and movies are not art, nor are they intended to be. Neither are the novels of Harold Robbins. While it is lamentable that writers such as Robbins enjoy a popularity unknown to novelists with artistic intentions, such popularity of the former in no way reflects on the quality of work done by the latter. Nor will it do to make a facile argument that our society is diseased and therefore our art is diseased. Great art is produced as much in defiance of the spirit of the age as in harmony with it. Flaubert would have been sur- prised to hear that his work was shallow because it reflected a shallow society. Every age laments "the decline of the arts," but every age tends to underestimate its own art. It is trite to say that judgment must be left to the fqture, but it is nonetheless true. In the 1920s, it was commonly assumed that America had failed to produce even one great writer, despite the greatness which we now take for granted of Whitman, Hawthorne, Melville, Emerson, James, Twain, and Thoreau. Furthermore, Chapman displays an astonishing ignoran- ce about the arts in general. Robert Frost is the "greatest recent American poet?" What about Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound, and William Carlos Williams? "Unbearable boredom" is far from my respon- se to a Jackson Pollock retrospective-I suggest reading what Robert Hughes has to say on this. Chapman's essay aboundsin such insensitive, thoughtless remarks, and I believe+it is an embarrassment for the Daily to publish such inane drivel. -Allan Rubinoff February 9 a DI. 1 ' 't ^ : i ,t;. i( ' " ", 4; A n entertaining mess I a 0 $ .' > " may., 1 A/ . tI'. .41 To the Daily: Along with seemingly hundreds of others who purchased tickets in advance for the B. B. King, 0, J. Anderson performance at the Second Chance this past Sunday, my wife and I found there were no seats available. We feel that not representing tickets as possibly standing room was a serious misrepresentation. In addition, we felt serious con- cerns for our safety as stairs were occupied, exit signs were not visible, and capacity limit seemingly was far exceeded. Our concern is n6r that our money was not refunded (it was refunded without our asking) but rather that we had to stand out- side in the /cold for 45 minute- from the time the doors were supposed to have opened only to find out that our tickets did not- entitle us to seats. - Charles Newman February 9 f - - The wart of generalizations To the Daily: . F' t4 3=-4% . Andrew Chapman's article (Daily, Feb. 6) which begins, "There is only one term that describes the current state of the arts in America-insipid," is bound to receive a negative res- ponse from most readers. I thought one of the primary rules of journalism is to avoid gross generalizations, especially when dealing with so vast and con- troversial a subject as the Stevens? John Ashbery? Chapman is focusing on the blatantly mediocre, which may seriously outweigh the few aesthetic gems being created. But Chapman can't say that Sharkey's Machine is as good as recent movies have been or that highest critical acclaim has been awarded to The Four Seasons. I think one can safely say, Obnoxious ushers 'k. , s , G 1 r . O , r " To the Daily: I am growing increasingly an- noyed at the unreasonable demands of the volunteer usher/students while they "maintain security" at all of the major concerts here Fat the University. :6 crowds who attend these shows? All too often the "ushers" con- tinually harass a large portion of tiMe crowd who are trying to enjoy themselves and the music. It seems those who don't enjoy such music are intent on denying that pleasure to others who pay A 1 -- i