Your voice made a difference.
Moms sent a whopping 120,000 comments to EPA demanding a rule that would reduce the ozone that contributes to smog — a dangerous pollutant that especially harms the lungs of our children and our elderly.
Today, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy announced a rule that will reduce the allowable level of ozone in our air from 75 parts per billion to 70 ppb.
This is not as strong a protection as we had hoped it would be. This rule is at the least protective end of the range recommended by EPA’s science advisors. We wish EPA had gone further.
However, we cannot lose sight of the new rule’s significance. It is an improvement over the standard of 75 ppb that we have been living with for 7 years.
Moms Clean Air Force is glad, finally, to have a new standard. It joins recent historic achievements: America’s Clean Power Plan, the new mercury regulations, and the “good neighbor rule” that keeps states from polluting their neighbors’ air.
Our air is safer because of the work that was begun decades ago, when America’s Clean Air Act was signed into law. Since 1970, dangerous air pollution in the U.S. has been cut by 70%. And, in that time, our economy has grown by more than 240%. Don’t let polluters—who have spent tens of millions of dollars fighting this rule—tell you that clean air regulations cripple the economy. There is absolutely no proof of this.
All of us at Moms Clean Air Force —and all of you, our members — will continue to fight hard to get the best protections for our children’s, and for everyone’s, health.