Moms staff and members testified to the EPA last week, asking them not go forth with a proposed rule that would allow polluters to get permits for “minor” pollution sources without notifying local communities. These “minor” sources include heavily polluting AI data centers, “advanced recycling” plastics burning plants, and chemical manufacturing campuses. In all, 13 Moms raised concerns about the potential for companies to significantly increase pollution in already overburdened communities, without even providing a chance for public comment.
Pennsylvania Field Organizer Vanessa Lynch’s testimony rang true and was later quoted in Wired: “As someone actively working in communities with data centers, I know this to be fundamentally true: People want to have a say,” she said. Ohio Field Organizer Amanda Rowoldt shared similar sentiments with EPA, reminding the agency that “public participation is essential in a free and democratic society.”
Tell EPA: No New Toxic Pollution Without Public Input
West Virginia Field Organizer Lani Wean told the EPA that her state has already faced decades of corruption, with greedy industry and power-hungry regulators forcing pollution on communities for profit. “I have no doubt in my mind that this proposal will exacerbate those very issues and is intended to do that,” she said. An excerpt from Lani’s testimony also ran in the West Virginia Gazette Mail.
Interested advocates can also tell EPA not to go forth with the rule or submit a comment directly to the EPA before August 21.
In other news
- Lani also testified to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, asking them not to approve a permit request for a plastic pyrolysis site that would be located fewer than 500 feet from a school. Her compelling testimony made another West Virginia Gazette Mail article, which quoted her stating that the facility would set a “dangerous precedent” for new petrochemical development.
- “I feel love is a powerful motivator for change, and the love we have for our children is kind of the ‘ultimate renewable fuel,’ and the energy that will keep us going,” Moms Co-Founder and Director Dominique Browning shares how she stays positive in the face of setbacks, on Not A Climate Scientist Podcast.
- Dominique also co-authored an op-ed with Moms’ Senior Petrochemical Analyst Cynthia Palmer in The 74, explaining that the EPA’s proposal to gut the Risk Management Program, which is designed to protect Americans from chemical disasters, will directly endanger one-in-three children that attend school in chemical disaster vulnerability zones.
- Nevada Field Organizer Mary Wagner writes that increasingly common extreme heat is threatening her children’s ability to play sports—one of the “greatest joys of childhood” in an op-ed for Impacto Media and El Pregonero. Read what she has to say about the inequitable and dangerous impacts of extreme heat on and off the field.
- Mary also speaks to Nevada Public Radio about a recent change to Nevada Energy’s rates that will charge customers based on their highest electricity usage, calling this decision unfair because it will specifically increase costs for rooftop solar owners.
- As temperatures in cities across the U.S. consistently hit triple digits before noon most days, Moms’ Public Health Manager Elizabeth Bechard warns that children in summer school may fall further behind. “Asking them to catch up with their learning in very suboptimal learning conditions, when it’s too hot to learn, is not going to help so much,” Elizabeth shares with the Hechinger Report.
- Elizabeth was also quoted in West Virginia Gazette Mail, calling a recent proposal by the Office of Management and Budget to overhaul the current framework for federal financial assistance and replace it with a discretionary, partisan system to be an “outrage.” She also explains to Pioneer Press that the poor air quality covering the Midwest this summer is particularly dangerous for children because their lungs are still developing.
- In the Denver Post, Colorado Field Organizer Laurie Anderson addresses an inconclusive result on a study evaluating if current oil well distance is enough to protect children from leukemia. She warns that the result means industry will “frack anything in the area before they get the study that says, ‘Whoops, we weren’t as protective as we should have been.’”
Honorable mentions
Over the last few weeks, Moms also earned mentions in Black Enterprise, Spectrum News 9, Sierra Sun Times, The Lens, Rolling Out, and PA Environment Digest.