Something is seriously wrong here

I had no clue about this but according to this article we've got PZEV (partially zero emission vehicles) being sold in 8 states that are illegal to sell in the remaining 42. Now, this isn't necessarily about improved gas mileage, but it is about clean air. As an example of just how clean the air can be:

As the California Air Resources Board has noted, the tailpipe emissions of these cars can be cleaner than the outside air in smoggy cities.

Which may not seem like a big thing here in cache valley, except when you think about our inversion, which can spike us to the top of the list for poor air quality. The cost looks to be about $400 for these cars, which IMO doesn't necessarily price people out of buying a new car, and that's assuming all those costs are passed on to the consumer. Honda, is partially eating these costs on the Accord, and I'm sure there's an economies of scale issue here--if they weren't building two of the same vehicle, and were building more PZEVs that cost should come down. So why I ask you, can't we legalize these vehicles in all 50 states? Better yet, why can't we mandate them? We have the worst vehicle emissions standards in the developed world. Bar none. There are big clean air offenders like China who have cleaner vehicle emissions standards than us, and I don't think we're doing our auto manufacturers any favors by keeping our standards low because their vehicles are often illegal to operate in other countries.

I'm so grateful that the clean air act is protecting us from the sub-humans who would actually attempt to buy a PZEV for use in a state that doesn't have these standards. I would shudder to think that anyone is actually trying to curb pollution.