Reducing Pollution from Cars and Trucks

How do cars and trucks affect our air?

Cars and trucks can emit a range of harmful pollutants, such as fine particle pollution, nitrogen oxides, and carbon monoxide. Tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks can also combine with heat and air in the atmosphere to form ground level ozone, or smog.

The transportation sector is the largest source of climate pollution in the US.

How does the pollution from cars and trucks harm you?

Exposure to the pollution from cars and trucks can cause a range of health effects in people, such as asthma, lung infections, heart attacks, stroke, premature death, low birth weight, and cancer.

What are the Clean Car Standards?

In 2012, the U.S. Government finalized greenhouse gas reduction and fuel efficiency standards for new cars and passenger vehicles in model years 2017-2025. These standards were adopted with broad support from automakers, labor, and consumers—including members of Moms Clean Air Force, who testified on their behalf, and pushed automakers and lawmakers in support of strong regulations.

Are the Clean Car Standards working?

Yes. The Clean Car Standards have proven achievable and cost effective for the auto industry. They have delivered the cleanest and most efficient vehicles the American people have ever known. They save families hundreds of billions at the pump, protect against gas spikes, and reduce our reliance on foreign oil. And, because the transportation sector is the largest source of climate-warming carbon dioxide pollution in the US, they are our country’s most significant program to fight climate change. Weakening these standards will harm our climate, our health, our pocketbooks — and even our jobs.

The Clean Car Standards are under attack by the Trump Administration — and an EPA, led by Administrator Andrew Wheeler, that is no longer working to protect us.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler has proposed a severe weakening of the Clean Car standards, one that would allow an extra 7.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide to be emitted by inefficient and outdated passenger vehicles.

Wheeler’s EPA is also trying to undermine longstanding state authority by blocking the right of California and 13 other states to set greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars that are more protective than the national ones.

Here’s how moms are fighting for the Clean Car Standards — and how you can help.

Moms Clean Air Force is aggressively defending the nation’s Clean Car Standards. Members have sent over 75,000 comments to EPA, and at EPA hearings in Pittsburgh, PA and Dearborn, MI, our members testified about why fuel standards are critical to their children’s health.

You can add your voice by contacting your senators, your governor, and even the automakers directly.

Go onto the Facebook page of your favorite automaker to leave a comment, or tweet directly to their corporate handle. Ask them: What are you doing to prevent the Trump administration from getting away with scrapping this essential climate program that is saving us money and protecting our health?

The science is clear. We must act with urgency.

Moms Clean Air Force demands that city, state, and federal lawmakers and regulators move us onto a path to climate safety immediately.

We must have laws and regulations that guide our country to the use of 100% clean energy for all our energy needs by 2045.
We must have laws and regulations that rapidly draw down carbon and methane emissions and ramp up energy efficiency everywhere.
Our goals must be ambitious, and staged deadlines must be strictly enforced to demonstrate measurable progress.
We must ensure that vulnerable populations and communities of color are given equitable protections and are granted access to cost-effective clean-energy options.
We must make bold investments in innovative technologies that will help solve this climate crisis.
We must hold companies accountable for cleaning up their climate pollution.

Tell Your Representatives:
It’s Beyond Time for Climate Safety