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Letter: Mia Love has been too quiet on air quality problems

(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and Rep. Mia Love speak following a roundtable in Eagle Mountain on Thursday Aug. 23, 2018. Rural broadband providers discussed "how expanding high-speed internet access and closing the digital divide can create jobs and increase digital opportunity."

Why hasn’t Mia Love, Utah’s District 4 congressional representative running for re-election, not spoken out on the administration’s rolling back of clean air emission standards for vehicles? Surely, she understands the poor quality of Utah’s air and the many health problems it causes her constituents, including death.

Utah’s air quality is rated worst in the nation, with Salt Lake City and Provo rated extremely high in ozone and small particulate pollution. Both cities are in the heart of Love’s district. Vehicle emissions cause at least 57 percent of pollution in the Salt Lake area. The poor air quality is especially harsh on the elderly, with physicians citing it as a cause of death in the 65-and-older group.

A Harvard study, published Dec. 26 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, is the latest of several recent papers that area physicians are heralding as proof the state needs to get tough with air pollution, as reported in The Salt Lake Tribune.

Ms. Love, give us answers as to why you have not addressed this severe problem, affecting thousands in your district.

Marla Mott-Smith, South Jordan

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