Parker Blackman (Forum, April 3) signed himself as the Western States field organizer for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. He attacked Rep. Enid Waldholtz for supporting her party in its attempt to put some fiscal sanity into what environmental activists have been doing over the past 25 years.

When the carbon monoxide emissions test program was inaugurated in Utah County, it was the "feeling" of the EPA administrator that a limit of 9 ppm should be set because of the possible threat to angina heart patients. EPA records had showed that there was one spot in the center of Provo where CO emissions sometimes exceeded 9 ppm, so they put their CO monitor there. It was a spot where heavy traffic had to stop to get through - a spot where tailpipes breathed right into the monitor.The EPA can enforce compliance with any desired program by threatening to withhold highway funds. This they did with the Utah County commissioners, so any element of democracy went out the window. Let it also be noted that the city fathers recently made a plan to reduce having to stop and idle cars along this area. The plan was very feasible and would have been implemented except that the EPA stepped in again and told the Provo city mayor that this was a foul ball because such a move would upset their program.

Over the years the EPA has tended to overplay the dangers involved in order to get their programs implemented, regardless of costs. Blackman is saying that it isn't fair or safe to examine these costs because people's health is involved. Who can say that 9 ppm vs 12 or 15 ppm was the difference between life and death?

George Burns is perhaps a thorn in the EPA's side because he has been breathing literally hundreds of ppms of CO with each cigar he smokes and he isn't dead yet. He just celebrated his 99th birthday.

Rep. Waldholtz, you are reading us voters correctly. You no doubt noted that we put a "term limit" on Rep. Wayne Owens a few years ago because he began listening to the likes of U.S. PIRG more than to those of us who live and breathe in Utah.

Harold Johnson

Salt Lake City

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