But TIME Washington correspondent Dick Thompson points out that it's not that Ford is so far ahead -- it's that the government is so far behind. "The administration is having an awful time getting regulations in place," he says, pointing to last week's Supreme Court strike-down of clean-air rules as a prime example. "So what they're doing is going behind the scenes and telling car companies like Ford what they're planning, and reminding them that it never hurts to be out front on this type of thing." It's obvious that Ford cherishes its reputation as a leader in this area -- the company is the sole sponsor of TIME's "Heroes of the Planet" series -- but Thompson says the private sector's heart is in the right place too. "They're reading the same data about greenhouse gases everybody else is," he says. "And they're deciding it's better to lead than go kicking and screaming." With the kind of success the EPA is having, they'll have to.
You Can Have Any Color, As Long As It's Green
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Whether out of genuine green-heartedness or just good p.r. instincts, Ford is putting its foot on the environmental accelerator. The world's second largest car company announced Monday it would one-up governmental regulations and voluntarily reduce light-truck and SUV emissions beyond what President Clinton and the EPA require. They'll even eat the $100-per-vehicle cost themselves, allowing soccer moms and rappers everywhere to continue to tower over the road without poisoning the air any more than the rest of us do.