Environment: Serious Violations

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...

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