The Open Forum Trump’s bad California rollback

It is extremely disappointing and incomprehensible to read that the Trump administration is attempting to revoke the rules applying to California’s Clean Cars Program. A dozen states, including Colorado, will be affected because they already agreed to adopt these rules intended to reduce air polluting gas emissions and increase automobile fuel economy.

The EPA, by its name and function, is supposed to “protect” the environment — but such rollbacks of the Clean Air Program make it more difficult to control air pollution and climate change effects in favor of energy corporations and, particularly, the fossil fuel industry. This is just the most recent of a very long list of the Trump administration’s attacks on reasonable environmental controls established under the previous administration.

I can’t wait to vote this ignorant and egotistical president (and his enabling cronies) out of office in November 2020. I just hope other voters are equally fed up.

Remember the old days when Republicans howled in outrage when the federal government seemed to be taking rights away from the states? I sure do. “State’s rights” was their clarion call, and we seemed to hear it every day.

Now we have Trump and his Republican gang leading the charge to deny California the right to set auto emission standards for their own state. (Trump wants to return to the days when every time you started your car, there was a gray cloud of filthy emissions from your tailpipe.) Trump is attempting to trample Californians’ right to insist on clean air for themselves.

Are Republicans now rejecting state’s rights? Did we miss the announcement?

If one in four teens vape, I would like Jon Caldara to explain how it’s not an epidemic. I would also like Caldara to explain to parents and educators how one goes about catching teens vaping. Vapes are easy to conceal, produce no smoke and are essentially odorless. At my daughter’s high school, the teens vape when the teacher’s back is turned and blow the steam into their shirt. There have been no longterm studies about the health effects of vaping, and a recent University of Pennsylvania study showed that a single instance of vaping (without nicotine) leads to a temporary reduction in vascular function. If vaping is truly a smoking cessation device, let it undergo FDA approval and require a doctor’s prescription.