As the 60-year Pat and Jerry Brown era of California
government approaches its end, air quality is a key part of their intertwined
legacy.
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| Governor "Pat" Brown (California State Library photo) |
When Governor Pat Brown took office in January 1959, air
pollution was not yet regulated at the state or national levels. Two days after his inauguration, an eleven
year-old girl wrote to him: “The smogg (sic) here in Los Angeles is so thick
that it’s pitiful.” Katy Dilkes continued,
“In one of my school classes we had a fire drill. The teachers always take roll call when we
get outside. The smogg was so thick that
we could not tell if we were pink or blue.
I was thinking that since you’re Governor, I thought that maybe you
could do something about it (and a little more than taking away incinerators).” She asked, “[D]on’t you think that I, and
everyone else, should have a little more to grow up to?”
On February 9, 1959, Governor Pat Brown cited Katy’s letter
in his six-point air pollution control proposal to the Legislature.
Her letter and photo appeared in
newspapers across
the globe.
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Katy Dilkes, then 11 years old, wrote a letter to Governor "Pat" Brown in January 1959 about thick smog that obscured her Los Angeles school yard. Governor Brown cited her letter in his February 1959 message to the Legislature proposing one of the world's first comprehensive air pollution control programs. [Los Angeles Times
Photographic Archives (Collection 1429).
Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.]
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The following day, Brown replied to Katy, deeming her letter
a “great help”: “Your description of the smog in simple, human terms has been
as important to me as the great mass of technical material that we have studied
on this problem.” Brown added, “Your
letter, Katy, reached beyond the problem of smog. It reminded me of my vital duty to help
insure that you and other young people have an opportunity to grow up in health
and happiness. When I think of our
difficult problems in terms of our children, it makes me redouble my efforts to
find the right solutions. If we will
remember our children and work with courage and confidence, I am sure we will
not fail.” He ended the letter, “Katy, I
do want you to know that by taking the time to write your letter you performed
a real public service.”
Brown’s point man on smog control was Warren Christopher,
who later became a preeminent Los Angeles attorney and President Clinton’s
Secretary of State. On February 17,
1959, Christopher advised Brown on Detroit’s reaction to his plan, “The
automobile industry officials attempted to create the impression that smog is a
localized condition in Los Angeles, but State Department of Public Health
experts have warned that this is a problem in every metropolitan area of
California, as well as elsewhere … [A]utomobile officials seem more interested
in creating resistance to smog control by pointing up high costs and necessity
of inspection than in talking about their progress in devices.”
In 1959, Brown signed a law requiring the State to develop its
first air quality standards. In 1960,
Brown approved a bill creating the Motor Vehicle Pollution Control Board, which
promulgated and enforced the world’s first potent regulations of automotive
exhaust. In June 1966, Brown told an air
pollution conference, "But one lesson we have learned here in California:
If we had waited for the automobile industry or the federal government to act,
we would have lost at least seven crucial years in the fight against smog."
Republican Governors Ronald Reagan (creation of Air
Resources Board in 1967) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (signing of AB 32 global
warming bill in 2006) continued a bipartisan tradition of bold, innovative air
pollution control policies. Jerry Brown
added to it with his signing of climate control legislation.
Today Katy Purtee is a 71 year-old resident of New York
state. She worked as a set design artist
in Hollywood and New York. “It was
shocking to me,” she recalls of the thick smog that obscured her classmates
from her teacher, “All of our eyes were watering.” Katy asked her mother for a way to express
her concerns; she suggested that Katy write a letter to the new governor, Pat
Brown. It caught the eye of Warren
Christopher, who asked her mother for permission to publish Katy’s letter. Katy received mail from well-wishers around
the world.
“I really do think that the two governors Brown, father and
son, have been great leaders for California, which has led the way in our
country, ecologically - a huge force that we desperately need more of,” says
Katy Purtee today. “My husband and I try to do our little part with solar
panels, hybrid cars and locally sourced food as much as possible, but
government mandates and strict laws are what's really needed, I believe, for
our survival.”
In the final days of the Brown era, we should recall the
special relationship forged between Pat Brown and a Los Angeles schoolgirl from
his first days in office. Small voices
can spark California’s worldwide leadership in environmental protection and human
progress.
