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Programs to control motor vehicle emissions originated in California as a result of Professor A.J. Haagen-Smit of the California Institute of Technology discovering that two invisible automobile emissions, hydrocarbons and oxides of nitrogen, react together in the presence of sunlight to form oxidants such as ozone, a principal ingredient of the infamous Los Angeles area “smog”. The State of California became the first government to regulate the emissions of new automobiles when it adopted requirements for the use of positive crankcase ventilation (PCV) valves beginning with the 1963 model year.

Gasohol, a blend of 90 percent unleaded gasoline and 10 percent ethanol, has been represented as an alternative to pure gasoline which can reduce the nation’s crude oil dependence. However, a systems analysis of the gasohol production processes indicates that gasohol is increasing rather than decreasing the nation’s dependence on crude oil. Alternative uses of the petroleum and natural gas currently used to manufacture ethanol would reduce the nation’s demand for oil. At the present time, every gallon of crude oil “saved” by substituting ethanol for gasoline results in a need to import approximately two gallons of crude oil. The federal government’s claim that gasohol can reduce the nation’s dependence on imported energy appears, to be based principally on political considerations, but also on the assumption that coal will eventually replace the petroleum and natural gas currently used in the gasohol production wherever possible.

A survey of vehicle refueling practices in California during the gasoline shortage of 1979 indicates that the use of leaded gasoline in catalyst equipped vehicles was occurring at a rate of about 1.6%. This 1.6% “misfueling” rate is lower than has been predicted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and is almost exclusively the result of the refueling that occurs at self-service gasoline pumps. About three-quarters of the misfueled vehicles were apparently operated on leaded gasoline routinely. Based on the effect that leaded fuel has on the exhaust emission characteristics of catalyst equipped vehicles it is estimated that misfueling in California is increasing hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions by about 4% and 1.6%, respectively from late model passenger cars.