Missourian Targets California Smog Rules

“U. S. Senate Preempts California’s Curbs on Small-Engine Smog” (Nov. 13) was as revealing as it was infuriating. Apparently the power of campaign donations is such that Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) will say the damnedest things, i.e., that Briggs & Stratton must be protected from the need to keep its products up to date and that the company (his donor) will lose 20,000 jobs and move out of the country. Never mind that Briggs & Stratton was telling the Security and Exchange Commission that the change to a cleaner engine design would have “no material effect on earnings.”

If California and other states were allowed to require cleaner engines, we would all breathe easier and Bond’s dinosaur would, in the end, retool and get new business. We do this for automobiles now, and it is necessary that we do the same for the multitude of small engines we ignore at our peril.

Robert Siebert

Orange