I want to commend President Obama for his “Executive Decision” on clean cars emission standards. This will not only affect old ladies like me with asthma or children wanting to play outdoors, but will have a far reaching impact on the auto industry and its suppliers and will be a tremendous boost for our economy. It took someone with his negotiating skills and bargaining power to get the auto industry to work together and be serious about finding solutions.

During the last two years I did some research for ACES (Austin Coalition for Environmental Sustainability) on cars meeting the proposed clean cars standards. The Environmental Protection Agency and Consumer Report Auto survey showed that there were a lot of cars being made then. The catch came when I took a look at the distribution of these cars. They were being made, but were not available to buy in Minnesota.

Apparently at President  Obama’s meeting, he pointed out that if other less highly developed countries could produce more environmentally friendly cars, he thought it was about time they started working together to prove we can do it in the U. S., too.

By the way, the BBC late night news has been talking about the big increase in auto sales in Europe.

Ruth Klamm

Austin