Answer: very possibly.

The Benzene problem is a legitimate externality - known source, a known pollutant, and it imposes a social cost that is not part of the transaction.

A classic externality, and there are many ways of dealing with it. The most efficient, of course, (which means that there would be almost no chance that Kulongoski would take this approach) would be a system of tradeable benzene emmission credits that had to be purchased by the gas companies.

The worst way to deal with it would be to do what Kulongoski did with CO2 emmissions - complicated emmission "standards."

Wow. University of Chicago talk. How quaint.

Er, Ron Saxton don't care too much about pollution. He's not running for governor to deal with global warming, and he's likely to repeal the clean car standards Ted put in place, having taken $2 million from polluters. A smart gambling man wouldn't put money on it.

Yes, tradable credits are a good system, but it's a challenge to design them right -- especially because lots of the health damages (externalities) of benzene are concentrated, instead of market-wide. So different neighborhoods should have different markets, and should be measured. What's your plan?

Kulio's emission standards are fine, clear, consistent with many other states, and will help the auto industry meet other country's standards as well.

I say this time and again, and never get a response - before we spend millions squeaking the last bit of cleanliness demands out of new cars, wouldn't it make more sense to enforce standards on older cars? Let's clean up the real sources of pollution, not tilt at minor ones.

In Portland, since we have a mild climate and don't use salt, cars last forever, but there's no incentive to have them run terribly cleanly. Where I live, I see cars (many of them old diesel Mercedes with Keep Portland Weird stickers on them) that are coughing gray clouds of pollutants as the motor on down the road. Not to mention the massive cloud that kicks up when they start from an intersection.

When are we going to do something that matters, rather than these symbolic acts unlikely to change anything?

Wow, Jack, that was a brilliant rejoinder!