FEDERAL REGULATORY MANAGEMENT OF THE AUTOMOBILE IN THE UNITED STATES, 1966–1988 by LEE JARED VINSEL DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences of Carnegie Mellon University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Carnegie Mellon University May 2011 Dissertation Committee: Professor David A. Hounshell, Chair Professor Jay Aronson Professor John Soluri Professor Joel A. Tarr Professor Steven Usselman (Georgia Tech) © 2011 Lee Jared Vinsel ii Dedication For the Vinsels, the McFaddens, and the Middletons and for Abigail, who held the ship steady iii Abstract Federal Regulatory Management of the Automobile in the United States, 1966–1988 by LEE JARED VINSEL Dissertation Director: Professor David A. Hounshell Throughout the 20th century, the automobile became the great American machine, a technological object that became inseparable from every level of American life and culture from the cycles of the national economy to the passions of teen dating, from the travails of labor struggles to the travels of “soccer moms.” Yet, the automobile brought with it multiple dimensions of risk: crashes mangled bodies, tailpipes spewed toxic exhausts, and engines “guzzled” increasingly limited fuel resources. During the 1960s and 1970s, the United States Federal government created institutions—primarily the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration within the Department of Transportation and the Office of Mobile Source Pollution Control in the Environmental Protection Agency—to regulate the automobile industry around three concerns, namely crash safety, fuel efficiency, and control of emissions. This dissertation examines the growth of state institutions to regulate these three concerns during the 1960s and 1970s through the 1980s when iv the state came under fire from new political forces and governmental bureaucracies experienced large cutbacks in budgets and staff. While most previous studies of regulation have focused either on biographies of regulatory visionaries (a.k.a. policy entrepreneurs) or on legislative histories, this dissertation examines how the federal government built bureaucratic organizations and administrative capacity to regulate and force change in the automobile through performance standards. Employees of these agencies helped shape automobile design by creating routine regulatory procedures that intervened in the longstanding traditions of automobile design. Only by examining these micro- practices of governmental power, I argue, can we understand how regulatory regimes have truly influenced their intended objects. My dissertation examines how these institutions developed, learned, and evolved, with an eye to how these transformations shaped technological change in the automobile industry. By examining the mundane world of federal test procedures, scientific studies, agency meetings, and administrative hearings, I will show how low-level bureaucrats formed new networks between government and industry, established the state of the art in automobile technology, and forced innovation in automobile design. v Acknowledgments Over the three years of this dissertation’s making, a number of institutions have supported my research and writing. Two National Science Foundation grants funded my research and studies early on, the grant that created the Climate Decision Making Center and the grant titled “The Socio-Political Construction of Technologies under "Technology-Forcing" Regulations: A Tale of Two Automotive Technologies, "One" Government and "One" Industry.” I was pleased and honored to receive a Dissertation Improvement Grant from the National Science Foundation and the John E. Rovensky Fellowship in American Business or Economic History for the 2009– 2010 academic year. Two dissertation workshops helped me improve and winnow down my work: Sheila Jasanoff and Clark Miller challenged me to clarify and refine my thinking during the Social Science Research Council Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship in 2008. Pamela Laird, Mary O’Sullivan, and Steve Tolliday also helped me consider new avenues of research and unexplored corners of my topic at the Business History Conference’s Oxford Journals Colloquium in Business History in 2009. (Thanks, too, to Jenna Alden for organizing the BHC Colloquium in Milan, Italy.) Finally, in 2008, a Ford Motor Company Research Funding grant assisted my continuing work. Thanks also to the librarians at Carnegie Mellon, especially Kara Kreger and Sue Collins, who always effectively answered my questions. A number of people inside and outside government helped me in locating both people and records. The librarians and record managers David Doernberg (Department of Transportation) and Kirk Nims (Environmental Protection Agency) vi led me to important archival discoveries. My work at the EPA may have gone nowhere at all if not for Joseph Somers, who both shared recollections from his near photographic memory and gave me the contact info of several retired EPA staff members. The most important of these contacts was Eric Stork. Eric helped me in innumerable ways, offering his time whenever I requested it, allowing me to interview him several times, sharing his large collection of press clipping and private papers, and reviewing my chapter drafts to ensure that I did not botch some matter of fact. I owe him a great deal. Karl Hellman also helped by trusting me with his memories and with his large collection of EPA memos and reports, which he gave me in the summer of 2010. Thanks also to other present and former EPA staff members who allowed me to interview them, including Ernie Rosenberg, Janet Auerbach, Richard Lawrence, Joseph Merenda, Charles Gray, Rich Cook, and Katherine A. Sargent. Though I chose in the end not to rely on oral histories in the chapters on federal auto safety regulations, I could not have negotiated the landscape of automotive crash safety without several interviews that gave me some insight into the workings of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. I am particularly indebted to Michael Finkelstein, Marilena Amoni, Joseph Kanianthra, Sam Daniels, Clarke Harper, Harry Thompson, Jim Simons, and John Hinch. Through interviews, Bill King and Richard Klimisch gave me insight into the auto industry’s side of the story, and Steve Plotkin helped me see the complexity of auto regulation. It has become a convention for authors’ to list a number of commentators who have improved their work, and then to write something like, “All errors are mine and mine alone.” We should equally say this about our selves. I have been vii blessed to have many people (and institutions) in my life who have helped shape me in positive ways—including the part of me that wrote this dissertation. All remaining errors (of self) are mine and mine alone. At Carnegie Mellon, I benefited greatly from being a member of the Climate Decision Making Center, an interdisciplinary group dedicated to studying climate change policy- and decision-making under uncertainty. The professors and students of that group formed my thinking in ways that I did not come to realize until much later. I am indebted to Granger Morgan, Lester Lave, Marija Ilic, and Jay Apt. The students of the CDMC always enlivened me and led me to think about new subjects. I am particularly thankful to (and miss) Inês Azevedo, Vanessa Schweizer, Constantine Samaras, Josh Stolaroff, and Andy Grieshop. I was also lucky to be able to sit in on the seminars of SETChange (Strategy, Entrepreneurship, and Technological Change). Being around Steven Klepper and Francisco Veloso taught me a great deal, and their student Leonardo Reyes-Gonzalez left an indelible impression. In the History Department, Steve Schlossman guided my early forays into the archive in the graduate research seminar. Paul Eiss kept my theory chops honed. Scott Sandage taught me not only about the arts of writing history and teaching but also about the art of living. It’s rare to find someone who can teach you so much, and I can’t thank him enough for it. Kevin Brown, Cian McMahon, Susan Spellman, and Patrick Zimmerman have been true friends. Susan has frequently tightened my prose, challenged my hazy thoughts, and, generally, kicked me when I needed kicking. Thanks, sister. Thanks, finally, to the History Department’s staff members, especially Natalie Taylor and Gail Tooks. viii I am very lucky to have found such an excellent dissertation committee in David Hounshell, Jay Aronson, John Soluri, Joel Tarr, and Steven Usselman. Jay led me in an important guided reading on Science and Technology Studies and has helped me along in other essential ways. John also carried out an extended guided reading with me on global environmental history. John has always asked me very hard and smart questions and has pushed me to broaden my thinking on all levels. Joel has always encouraged my broad interests and searching mind. He honed my historical skills by allowing me to assist his research and by teaching me what he was thinking as I did so. I thank hiM for always being supportive. Joel will have always been my intellectual grandfather . or, perhaps more appropriately, Godfather. As an undergraduate, I trained in philosophy and imagined that I would always remain in that field. Then, fatefully, I happened upon a book called Regulating Railroad Innovation by a man named Steven Usselman. Steve was kind to reply a random fan letter from a kid in Chicago but kinder to become a mentor and friend. His work continues to provide a model of great historical thinking. Steve put me in touch with historians of technology in Chicago, who brought me into the fold. Thanks especially to Richard John, who trusted a stranger to assist his research and taught me a great deal. And thanks to the regular attendees of the Newbery Library’s seminar in the history of technology, particularly Tom Misa. I have benefited immensely from being a member of that happy republic, the Society for the History of Technology, and of the Business History Conference. Thanks particularly to Meg Graham, Hugh Gorman, Bill Leslie, Daniel Holbrook, Chris Rosen, Arwen Mohun, and ix Bernie and Jane Carlson.