But there was a side effect: The leftover oxygen in the exhaust makes it hard to remove smog-forming nitrogen oxides.
The state-owned operation was being run mainly for the benefit of its 2,800 workers, and he wanted to spend money on the workers, whom he had known his entire adult life, rather than on filters to remove soot and smog-causing gases.
The rules, the biggest change in regulation of trucks and buses in the agency's 30-year history, are intended to cut smog and remove from the air chemicals that have been linked to a variety of health problems, like cancer and asthma, E.P.A. officials said.
A principal reason smog is declining is that gasoline has been reformulated to remove pollutants; Whitman's order extends the standard to diesel fuel.
VW must recall all the cars, remove the defeat device and improve the cars' NOx emissions, which creates smog and has been linked to increased asthma attacks and other respiratory illnesses.
ZIRX is all about transforming the car industry and removing the hassles (parking, smog checks, oil changes, etc).
When combined with the agency's other current and coming rules on "criteria" pollutants, like ones that cause acid rain and smog, the mercury measure would require utilities to invest tens of millions of dollars on technologies to remove the substances.
Not just any old contact lenses, but red ones - the theory being that because smog is perceived by the human eye as being red, the lenses will make the eye adjust and remove red from the images it receives.
Ellen Garvey, the chief air pollution control officer of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, said that in principle her district was willing to do more if various legal hurdles to the tougher smog checks were removed.
They released a so-called jobs plan that calls for removing standards that protect Americans from smog, arsenic, lead, mercury, and other hazardous pollutants.
Though these vehicles burn gasoline, more than 90percentt of their smog-producing emissions are removed, compared with the average new car.
