Come back Mr. Johnson

California has always been at least one step ahead of the federal government in enacting laws to cut down automobile emissions. Until this week. The Environmental Protection Agency slapped down California’s bid for first-in-the-nation greenhouse gas limits on cars, trucks and SUVs, refusing the state a waiver that would have allowed those restrictions to take effect.

EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson told reporters “I believe this is a better approach than if individual states were to act alone.”

Twelve other states — Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington — have adopted the California emissions standards, and the governors of Arizona, Colorado, Florida and Utah have said they also plan to adopt them. The rules were also under consideration in Iowa.

Mr. Johnson, these states are trying to tell you something that you really need to hear. States and citizens are tired of the federal government kneeling to the oil and automotive industries. We want our cars to stop polluting our air. We want our cars to get better fuel economy. We want emissions to be cut back a lot more drastically than the federal governments’ recent paltry offering in the guise of an energy bill.

These few states have shown they are willing to place our nations health ahead of our nations wealth. Please follow their lead, do not stifle their initiative.

Please, bring the Environmental Protection Agency back to the people. You have strayed from the original path set out for the EPA in 1970 to protect human health and safeguard the natural environment: air, water and land. You are in danger of becoming as big a joke as this White House administration and the Congress that serves it.

We will welcome you back, Mr. Johnson, if you would only shun the reckless, environmentally damaging policies of this administration. Don’t be another lapdog to George W Bush.