Lower vehicle emission limits Much lower limits on vehicle emis­sions—perhaps as low as 50 p.p.m. hydrocarbons—should be put into ef­fect soon if U.S. cities are to get clean air by 1980, Los Angeles smog chief Louis J. Fuller said last week. Testi­fying in Los Angeles before the Senate Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollu­tion, headed by Sen. Edmund S. Mus-kie (D.-Me.), Mr. Fuller charged that exhaust control systems on 1966 model cars sold in California fail even to meet the present inadequate stand­ards.

A long-time critic of the present con­trol program and of Detroit's part in it, Mr. Fuller said further that the ob­ligation to see that control devices do what they are supposed to do should be placed squarely on the auto indus­try and "not foisted off upon the mo­toring public or state governments." He was joined in this view by county supervisor Kenneth Hahn, who told the seven senators that the automobile industry (he calls it the "out-of-reach industry in Detroit" ) has failed in its responsibility to the American people. He advocates that Congress enact a law requiring car makers to replace faulty control devices at no cost to the owner.

In his soft-spoken but hard-hitting attack on existing controls, Mr. Fuller said that present standards (275 p.p.m. hydrocarbons and 1.5% car­bon monoxide) are based on emission surveys made in 1956, which are themselves wrong. More accurate surveys in 1962 and 1963 indicate that the hydrocarbon limit should be 150 p.p.m., as far as Los Angeles is concerned. He says even that figure

LA smog chief Fuller Obligation is on car makers

is too high. He advocates a hydrocar­bon limit between 50 and 100 p.p.m. The technology to meet such a stand­ard exists, Mr. Fuller says. He adds that some General Motors research workers have told him, for example, that GM is now testing systems that cut hydrocarbon emission to 50 p.p.m.

Mr. Fuller is critical, too, of the system of averaging emissions to cer­tify control systems for a given class of cars. This is the method used by California's Motor Vehicle Pollution Control Board. As it now stands, he charges, according to MVPCB's own figures, 63% of the 1966 cars tested with more than 2000 miles failed to meet one or both of the standards, and the percentage of failures goes up markedly with increasing mileage.

MVPCB executive officer Eric P. Grant told the Muskie committee that his agency, too, will not be content until California achieves 100% control of vehicle emissions. But without av­eraging, he counters, there would be no controls on vehicles today. Pollu­tants from cars with control devices have been reduced an average of 70%.

California officials and the senators were very much concerned over whether the present federal law, the Clean Air Act, pre-empts the field of pollution control—whether individual states can set standards that are stricter than federal limits. Dean Cos-ton, Deputy Undersecretary of Health, Education, and Welfare told the com­mittee that the present law does not clearly pre-empt the field to the Fed­eral Government.

If any jurisdiction adopts more rigid standards, "We would have no legal ground to interpose objection," he says. The automobile companies might object, and the whole problem would wind up in the courts. Alter­natively, he suggests, Congress could make its intent clear. Mr. Coston thinks the Federal Government should pre-empt: "It is clear in my mind that a proliferation of regulation at the state or even local level would ulti­mately result in utter confusion." But most California officials fear that na­tionwide standards may not be strict enough for their state.

The committee was scheduled to be in Detroit this week, well armed with questions for the car makers.

Aztran confronts Corfam B. F. Goodrich's Aztran is set to do battle with Du Pont's Corfam for the potentially lucrative market in poro-meric (synthetic leather) shoe upper materials. Goodrich president Ward Keener introduced Aztran last week in New York City, giving Corfam its first competitor since Du Pont launched the

poromeric material about three years ago.

Current market for poromerics is about $30 million a year. However, it could total as much as $300 million by 1975.

Like Corfam, Aztran is a synthetic sandwich material composed of non-woven matrixes and a polyurethane top film. It is breathable from the in­ner surface but moisture repellent on the outside. Goodrich points to the material's conform ability to stretching forces and soft "feel" as important sell­ing points.

Goodrich has had Aztran under in­tensive development since 1961, about the time the company created a cor­porate-level department for new prod­ucts. H. P. Stockbridge, current cor­porate director of new products, says that more than 6000 test shoes from 43 shoe manufacturers have been made. The favorable results obtained with these shoes prompted the company to introduce the material commercially.

Goodrich is selling Aztran rolls di­rectly to shoe companies, which will show Aztran products to the retail trade at the National Shoe Fair in New York City in April. First sales to con­sumers, scheduled for fall, will consist of men's shoes in three textures and seven colors. Women's shoes should retail in the fall of 1968, Goodrich an­ticipates.

Initial Aztran production will come from a large semiworks facility near Akron, Ohio. In addition, Goodrich will start construction of an Aztran plant outside Marietta, Ohio, in May. Mr. Keener estimates the facility's in­itial operating date as mid-1968. The plant will be located adjacent to the company's Koroseal vinyl products plant.

Monsanto out of Mobay Last week, final judgment was made in the 34-month-old antitrust suit brought by the Justice Department against Monsanto, Farbenfabriken Bayer, and Mobay Chemical. Judge John L. Mil­ler, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, in Pitts­burgh, ordered that on or before March 31, 1967, Monsanto sell all of its inter­est (50%) in Mobay Chemical to Bayer. Bayer stated in Germany that the closing of the suit through a con­sent decree does not mean that any of the participating firms recognizes any infringement of the antitrust law.

The original civil suit, filed April 13, 1964, charged, among other things, that Monsanto and Bayer eliminated competition between themselves by setting up Mobay Chemical; that the joint venture had discouraged entry of new competitors into the isocyanate

FEB. 20, 1967 C&EN 21

field; that purchasers of these products had been denied the benefit of free competition; and that concentration in the chemical industry had been in­creased. Such charges, if proved, would violate section 1 of the Sherman Act and section 7 of the Clayton Act. The suit came 10 years after formation of Mobay Chemical.

The judgment also orders that within three months after Monsanto's sale of its interest in Mobay, Monsanto "shall not have or allow to serve as an officer or director of Monsanto any in­dividual whom it knows to be an offi­cer, director or managing agent of Mobay." Similarly, Mobay may not employ any officer or director of Mon­santo. The 1964 suit said that "offi­cers, directors, and employees of Mo­bay have been appointed from among officers, directors, and employees of both Monsanto and Bayer."

Bayer and Mobay are prohibited from selling or transferring any of the shares of Mobay or any substantial part of Mobay's isocyanate business with­out prior approval of the Justice De­partment.

The judgment also prohibits Mon­santo for a period of 10 years from ac­quiring directly or indirectly all or part of any facilities being used in the U.S. in making TDI(80-20) (Mo­bay's large-volume product, toluene diisocyanate) or in making flexible urethane foam made from TDI(80-20), or any capital stock of any cor­poration making TDI( 80-20) or flex­ible urethane foam made from TDI-(80-20) in the U.S without approval of the Justice Department. The judg­ment allows Monsanto to acquire such facilities or stock incidental to an ac­quisition made for other purposes provided that Monsanto files an under­taking with the court that it will dis­pose promptly of such facilities or business.

Neither Monsanto nor Bayer dis­closes the value of the sale. Although Monsanto won't admit that its sale of its Mobay interests is anything more than a "sound business judgment," it's likely that the company didn't want to face the prospect of a suit that might drag through the courts for years, could be very costly, and might be lost.

PSAC files post-Apollo answer One of the most hotly argued questions in the government space agencies and the aerospace industry is: What comes after Apollo, the manned land­ing on the moon? Last week, the President got an answer from his Sci­ence Advisory Committee. After a year-long study of the problem, the committee thinks these should be the nation's future space goals:

• A limited extension of Apollo to explore the moon.

• A strongly upgraded program of exploration of nearby planets aimed at eventual manned expeditions.

• Extended operations in near-earth orbit for the advance of science, particularly astronomy.

• A development program to qualify man for long-duration space flights.

• Extension and vigorous exploita­tion of space applications for the social and economic well-being of the nation and for national security.

The primary objectives of the U.S. space program in the post-Apollo pe­riod should be exploration of the plan­ets and space astronomy. This is the opinion of both the President's Science Advisory Committee and the Space Science Board of the National Acad­emy of Sciences. These objectives of­fer a supreme challenge, PSAC says, because their achievement may bring answers to questions about the origin and evolution of life, of the solar sys­tem, and of the universe.

Planetary exploration should set the pace for the post-Apollo program. This means that the largest part of the budget for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration should go for programs related to this objective. The promise of eventual manned ex­ploration should stimulate the pro­gram, PSAC says. However, it is too soon to set up a timetable or pick tar­gets. PSAC thinks that for most of the 1970's the program should concen­trate on unmanned space probes di­rected at Venus, Mars, and Mercury. Meanwhile, NASA should make stud­ies to define man's future role in space.

The nation can choose one of sev­eral levels of effort. The program can be extremely ambitious and press hard on manned exploration of space or it can be less expensive and emphasize unmanned missions in near-earth space. "But whatever choice of goals may be made," PSAC says, "the pace of the effort must preserve the ele­ments of technological and managerial excellence without which the benefits are not realized. At too low a level of effort, the program might lapse into a routine and repetitious series of dem­onstrations and collections of data of marginal value."

Currently NASA is spending a little more than $5 billion a year on the space effort. To illustrate the relation between program goals and costs, PSAC picked a year at random—fiscal 1972—and worked up budgets for three types of programs (see table).

The first program, requiring $3.5 billion, is a marginal-type effort. It has no programs which bear directly on manned explorations. It consists mainly of space astronomy experi­ments and unmanned probes. This program could accomplish the bare minimum of results but there is great danger that it does not provide enough challenge to produce important bene­fits in developing technological excel­lence and stimulating national self-confidence.

The second program, costing $5.8 billion, is the program recommended by the President's Science Advisory Committee. Although there is no sin­gle dominating program goal, most of the money is for manned space flight and the large boosters needed.

Urgency of space goals controls spending

Total program

Lunar exploration Solar system exploration Earth orbital operations Advanced research and technology Launch vehicle support General support

Fiscal year 1972 alternatives

A B (Millions of dolls

$3500

Per cent

8 % 16 19 11 20 26

$5800

Per cent

4 % 10 32 10 23 21

C irs)

$7000

Per cent

6 % 12 33 11 21 17

A—Minimum program; no manned space probes Β—PSAC program; eventual manned explorations C—Expanded program; manned explorations fairly soon

Source: President's Science Advisory Committee

22 C&EN FEB. 20, 1967