Trump Can’t Erase a Decade of Clean Air Progress with a Sharpie
California has been a leader in the fight to clean our air since one of my heroes, Ronald Reagan, was our governor.
The Trump administration, for some reason, is hellbent on reversing decades of history and progress. Whether it is political pettiness, shortsightedness or just plain jealousy, I couldn’t tell you.
I can tell you that it’s wrong. It’s un-American. And it’s an affront to long-standing conservative principles.
To understand why I’m so angry about the administration’s move to revoke California’s waiver to regulate automobile emissions, you must understand the history. In 1967, Reagan established the California Air Resources Board to fight crippling pollution. He appointed as its first director not a political hack or lobbyist, but a scientist, Arie Jan Haagen-Smit, who was a pioneering researcher of the causes and impacts of smog. The 1970 Clean Air Act, signed by another California Republican, President Richard M. Nixon, gave California the authority to regulate air pollution — and ever since, we have had what is called a waiver from the federal government to set car pollution limits.
Read the entire Washington Post Opinion by Arnold Schwarzenegger: https://t.co/9oCRccgpjg
