If any doubts remained, the Environmental Protection Agency clearly showed last week that it means business. In the largest fine ever levied on behalf of an antipollution measure, EPA won a judgment in U.S. district court against Ford Motor Co. for $3,500,000, plus other counts settled out of court for an additional $3,500,000.
Ford employees, EPA asserted, had deliberately tampered with 1973 model cars in order to make them seem less polluting than they actually were. In so doing, Ford violated federal clean-air laws. The court found Ford guilty of 350 criminal counts, at the maximum fine of $10,000 for each. Ford...