Comment Log Display

Dear Board Members,
My name is Frank Nieman. I live in San Ramon, California. I am
writing to you to ask you to please vote to impose the most
stringent smog controls possible on the diesel vehicles on our
highways. I suffer from severe, chronic asthma and am always on 3
medicines or more to combat this terrible disease. My son also
suffers from asthma as do other family members. Maybe my disease
was inherited, but it is also made much worse by diesel exhaust.
When I am on the freeway behind a semi tractor-trailer rig, I often
must hold my breath until I am past the offending diesel truck in
order to get clean air to breathe again. For healthy people, I can
understand ambivalence, but for those of us who suffer daily from a
compromised respiratory system, the decision of whether or not to
require diesel engines to burn cleaner is not a choice, but rather
an imperative. I applaud your decision in July to ban wood smoke on
Spare-The-Air days and now ask you once again to do the right thing
regarding the health of thousands of people in California like me
who will benefit from clean diesel regulations. Thank you for
reading my letter; I feel as though my health is in your hands. 
Frank Nieman