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| > **Eliska                | +---+---------------------------------+  |
| > Postell/DC/USEPA/US**   | | T | > ADMB_HQ OAR@EPA               |  |
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| > 04/24/2008 08:10 AM     | +---+---------------------------------+  |
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|                           | +---+---------------------------------+  |
|                           | | S | > Denial of waiver for clean    |  |
|                           | | u | > car standards deplorable      |  |
|                           | | b | > (lpeluso@cal.berkeley.edu)    |  |
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EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson

USEPA HQ - Ariel Rios Building

1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Mail Code: 1101A

Washington, DC 20460

Administrator Johnson,

In my life, the EPA has not been a healthy influence. In 1985,

my car was struck from the rear by a novice driver from a

foreign country who, by mistake, depressed the accelerator

instead of the brake while attempting to brake on the Harbor

Freeway in downtown Los Angeles. I was driving a Mercedes I had

imported myself and I was disabled for life because, to reduce

the cost of auto body repairs, the EPA had required that rebar

be installed in the bumpers of my car. By this simple stroke,

the EPA recklessly reversed the safety protection that Mercedes

had engineered into the car for my protection. Otherwise, the

crumple zones surrounding the passenger compartment cage would

have absorbed the shock. Instead, it went into my neck,

crippling me and leaving me in disabling pain.

Today I learned that you refused to allow 13 states to adopt

higher-than-federal emissions standards in order to slow global

warming. This, I understand was done despite orders or decisions

from federal judges in Vermont and California, and in

contradiction to a decision of the United States Supreme Court.

This EPA action, your decision, is baffling to those of us who

are well-informed about the perils of skyrocketing carbon

dioxide emissions and therefore ardently concerned about the

future of the Planet and our lives in it. There simply is no

time left to delay or grant privileges to special interests.

We would be extremely interested to know the precise reasons for

your baffling decision. We just cannot imagine a rational basis

for it. We cannot imagine that it was a decision made in the

interest of the People of the United States of America.

Please immediately revisit your short-sighted decision to reject

the waiver needed for states to implement the California clean

car standards.

Very sincerely,

Larry A. Peluso, J.D.

PO Box 720342

San Jose, CA 95172