To the Editor:
Re “President Plans to Ease Deadline on Car Emissions” (front page, Feb. 18):
It’s not surprising that Big Auto, Big Oil, car dealers and others have teamed up to run the Environmental Protection Agency’s draft auto pollution rules off the road. What is surprising and appalling is that after the hottest year on record and pledges to boldly confront the climate crisis, the Biden administration is bowing to their unseemly pressure.
The draft called for a rapid ramp up to requiring 67 percent of new cars, S.U.V.s and pickups to run on electricity by 2032. Instead, the administration will slow the ramp up, delaying the switch to clean electric cars. This will mean America’s new cars will use more oil, spew more pollution, intensify global warming and sicken more kids with asthma.
Myopic automakers may profit in the short term but pay in the long run when the world’s largest E.V. manufacturer — China — seizes the market while American companies produce more of yesterday’s gas guzzlers.
U.S. car companies never recovered the huge market share they lost to Japanese companies in the 1970s and ’80s. They don’t seem to have learned from their past fiasco.
Daniel F. Becker
Washington
The writer is the director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Safe Climate Transport Campaign.
To the Editor:
I’m not pleased with this change in policy, but at the very least, President Biden had better maintain or even improve support for E.V. purchases by the public, such as tax credits and increasing the number of charging stations.
If I buy a new car it will be an E.V., period. I already drive a hybrid, but the time has come to go all the way to E.V. And I hope other people in the market for a new vehicle will do the same. The industry will respond, because the demand for E.V.’s is there.
Brian Schill
San Antonio
Abortion Limits Under a Second Trump Administration
To the Editor:
Re “Trump Is Said to Favor Limit for Abortions” (front page, Feb. 17), about reports that Donald Trump supports a ban after 16 weeks with exceptions:
It should be no surprise to anybody that Mr. Trump “has approached abortion transactionally,” and that he privately has said he wishes to avoid committing himself on the issue until he has won the nomination.
He has approached every issue in his life transactionally. Bob Woodward’s book “Fear” about Mr. Trump reported that when he was contemplating running for president the first time, he went to a conservative political activist for advice.
The man told Mr. Trump that it would be difficult for him to run as a Republican for several reasons, one of which was that he had been an outspoken pro-choice supporter in the past. “That can be fixed,” Mr. Trump replied. The switch was instantaneous, painless and totally unaccompanied by mental anguish or soul-searching.
He probably gives more thought to his answer when a waitress asks, “Would you like American cheese or cheddar on your burger, sir?”
David English
Acton, Mass.
To the Editor:
Re “Trump’s Allies Plan to Bolster Abortion Bans” (front page, Feb. 18):
Reading about the numerous ways a second Trump administration could do material harm to abortion rights through executive action without any new laws, I was stunned by this callous sentence that was tossed off: “A 16-week ban would affect only a small fraction of abortions, given that nearly 94 percent happen in the first trimester, before 13 weeks of pregnancy.”
Such a ban would affect 100 percent of pregnancies in which lethal diagnoses for the fetus are made at the standard 20-week ultrasound, dooming those women to risk their health continuing pregnancies only to deliver babies they would then watch die.
The news is full of such stories from red states with post-Roe abortion bans that pretend to have medical exceptions. Abortion is best left to patients, their families and their doctors. The choice in this election could not be more clear.
Andrew Ross
Denver
The writer is an obstetrician-gynecologist.
Keeping Navalny’s Work Alive
To the Editor:
“Navalny’s Widow Accepts Mantle of the Opposition” (front page, Feb. 20) brought tears to my eyes. Keeping alive the memory and work of this courageous man who gave his life fighting tyranny in Russia on behalf of the unjustly oppressed will help rally others to join the cause.
I propose the establishment of an Aleksei Navalny Prize to be awarded to a worthy individual who meets his standard of courage and ethical principle in the fight for freedom against tyranny. Some of the funds can be used to help Mr. Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, and other Russian freedom fighters advance this cause.
Kenneth Rosenbaum
New York
$399 Trump Sneakers
To the Editor:
Re “Reeling From $450 Million Penalty, Trump Hawks $400 Shoes” (nytimes.com, Feb. 18), about Donald Trump’s promotion of Trump-branded sneakers:
Anybody who buys a pair of $399 gold sneakers is going to have to ask themselves whether their personal economy isn’t doing just a little bit better than they (and Mr. Trump) have been saying it is. And if they don’t, we owe it to ourselves to suggest it for them.
Claudia Lynch
New Orleans