Recently, it was announced that the environmental record of Mayor Jerry Sanders and the City Council has improved. Congratulations. However, “raspberries,” not kudos, are due to those who are attacking the Environmental Protection Agency and its admirable record of implementing the Clean Air Act at the federal level. Also, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Wall Street Journal recalls the tears he had from the bad air that greeted him when he came to California in 1968. The air here has improved, thanks to the Clean Air Act and other initiatives that California has pioneered since then. The Governor decries the attempt by some in Congress to make life less healthy by severely restricting the Clean Air Act, whose implementation has been based on the best science available. Schwarzenegger continues the long-held tradition of the Republican Party on environmental issues starting with President Teddy Roosevelt and passing through President Nixon and ending with the passage of the Clean Air Act amendments in 1990 under President George H.W. Bush. Schwarzenegger is part of a grand old tradition. Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), was the first one to my knowledge who described the three stages of 20th century environmentalism, noting the major contributions of the three presidents cited above. Krupp and the EDF join Schwarzenegger in urging all of us to maintain the high quality of our health by maintaining the integrity of the Clean Air Act. I ask that you join these two leaders of environmentalism in maintaining an air quality that does not produce tears. Art Cooley Founding trustee, Environmental Defense Fund La Jolla