Letters: Well emissions | Job 1 | No character | Accepting blame

East Bay Times Letters to the Editor for July 24, 2024

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Oil companies should
stop oil well emissions

California’s 40,000 idle oil and gas wells, and 60,000 active wells, leak toxic chemicals like cancer-causing benzene and climate-heating methane, a greenhouse gas containing 80 times the climate-warming power of carbon dioxide.

Current law allows oil companies to pay a small fee to avoid plugging idle wells, but the oil industry has still failed to clean them up, potentially leaving taxpayers on the hook for the multibillion-dollar bill.

California Assembly Bill 1866 would require oil companies to plug up to 20% of their idle wells per year. With this bill, Californians will benefit from better health and safety, reduced air pollution, creation of thousands of jobs and taking a major step in addressing the human caused climate crisis.
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Please call or write your state Assembly member and state senator and ask them to support AB 1866. Your efforts could greatly benefit our world.

Ron Sadler
Livermore

Passenger safety is
Job 1 of FAA, TSA

Re: “FAA and TSA must do more to handle spikes in passengers” (Page A8, July 21).

Sheldon Jacobson’s piece was what I’d expect from someone in academia — long on magical thinking, short on realistic solutions.

He believes government and businesses must do more to improve the passenger experience. He doesn’t understand that most of the improvements he cites would require congressional action.

Improvements in air traffic control through AI? The United States handles 45,000 flights daily — you can’t just say, “Let’s see what AI would do.” I helped design and install new air traffic control tech — it’s a deliberate process because lives are at stake.

As for a more cooperative approach that puts passengers first, the FAA and airlines conference regularly and often throughout a typical day, but the overriding goal, as it should be, is safety and efficiency.

The best passenger experience is arriving at your destination safely, even if it’s not always on time.

Thomas Gray
Livermore

Candidate Trump shows
GOP has no character

Character truly is destiny, and the Republican Party has unashamedly shown that they have no character.

They nominated a 34-count felon, an adjudicated sexual abuser, a convicted cheat in his businesses and an accused thief of classified documents that he shared with unauthorized people. And now we are supposed to turn over more classified documents to him because he is so trustworthy.

He openly in advance proclaims that he will only accept the results of this election if he wins. That should be disqualifying. How many football or baseball games would people attend if one of the teams declared that they would only accept the results of the game if they won?

Really, who in their right mind thinks he is the best person to lead our country? Make your best case and may the best person win … the best person.

Zoe Simons
Concord

Difference in parties
is in accepting fault

Re: “Right must stop dangerous rhetoric” and “Left is stoking outrage and anger” (Page A9, July 21).

Thank you for the side-by-side opinion pieces by Americans for Democratic Action (Don Kusler) and the Coolidge Reagan Foundation (Shaun McCutcheon).

What struck me as a major difference between them was that Kusler’s piece mentioned the rhetoric of his own party being to blame as well; McCutcheon did not. McCutcheon also made no mention of the opportunity former President Trump had on Jan. 6 to stop the violence, yet took no action.

McCutcheon also made no mention that over 93% of the George Floyd demonstrations were peaceful. It doesn’t make the nonpeaceful ones right, but McCutcheon ignores the millions who participated in nonviolent demonstrations.

But, I have a question: If a president of the United States refuses to stop the violence his own supporters engage in, then who listens when it is asked of them?

Lisa Rigge
Pleasanton