The EPA begins the phaseout of leaded gasoline in April 1976. Its industry opponents lose lawsuits, one after another, filed against the proposed federal regulations, which have already been watered down at the request of corporate titans and Nixon’s White House. Lawrence Blanchard Jr., vice-chair of the Ethyl Corporation, which remains one of three chief American suppliers of tetraethyl, the additive that crippled and perhaps killed its inventor, is apoplectic, comparing the regulations to “the worst example of fanaticism since the New England witch hunts in the 17th Century.”[20]
