From the beginning of the Biden administration, we’ve fought, cajoled, and begged for strong EPA rules to protect our families from climate change and toxic air pollution. We spent 2022 in a state of readiness, calling on EPA to take action through petitions, meetings, and events centered on the urgent need for air pollution protections. Finally, this year, EPA has proposed many of the rules we demanded. This is what we’ve been waiting for! Since the beginning of the year, Moms Clean Air Force members have testified 320 times at hearings on seven highly important EPA rules.
These recent EPA hearings are part of a longer campaign to enact rules that will deliver on many of the promises President Biden made to cut greenhouse gas pollution and to achieve a power sector free of carbon pollution by 2035. We started off 2023 by testifying at EPA on methane in January. EPA proposed reducing methane pollution from oil and gas operations by 87% below 2005 levels. Swift finalization of this rule is an important step toward addressing the climate crisis and protecting the health of families across the country.
In February, 60 Moms members told EPA that their proposed soot pollution standards—though an improvement—fall short of the protections Moms Clean Air Force has long advocated for to protect public health. Soot comes in part from burning fossil fuels in power plants, industrial processes, and combustion engines. Breathing this pollution into our lungs can affect our health in many ways, from asthma attacks to heart attacks to strokes.
In May and June, Moms testified at five EPA hearings on some of our most pressing climate and air pollution issues: limiting pollution from cars and trucks, power plants, and chemical manufacturing facilities. Participating in this many EPA public hearings in six weeks is unprecedented—but we were ready!
With your help, we met the moment. We kicked it all off with a bang at the beginning of May, with simultaneous EPA public hearings on the proposed Mercury Air Toxics Standards for power plants and a proposed rule to curtail pollution from heavy-duty trucks. As a mother, I’m used to multitasking, and recently, the multitasking has been next level.
The next week, we participated in an EPA public hearing on proposed clean car standards, an EPA rule we see as a “historic step forward in cleaning up tailpipe emissions,” and as West Virginia field organizer Lucia Valentine tells the Charleston Gazette-Mail, “an opportunity we can’t miss.”
The week after that, we participated in EPA’s hearing for its proposed chemical manufacturing standards. Ohio field organizer Tracy Sabetta’s testimony was so compelling we published it: At an Ohio Superfund Site, “You Could Smell the Chemicals in the Air and Water.”
In June, we turned out our largest group of all—more than 60 people—to ask EPA to enact the strongest possible rules to limit climate-warming carbon pollution from gas- and coal-fired power plants. We also shared a wide range of viewpoints asking EPA to enact stronger community safeguards and enhance community engagement in areas impacted by carbon capture and sequestration.
At the same time, we’ve been showing up at EPA regularly for meetings with leaders like Deputy Administrators Alejandra Núñez and Tomás Carbonell, and holding events to help the public understand the importance of these rules.
The impact of these seven EPA proposals together is immense. They will spare thousands of families the agony of watching a loved one struggle to breathe due to asthma and other respiratory illnesses and set us on an unprecedented path to curb climate pollution. Each of these rules can and should be improved and strengthened—and we are telling EPA that we want the strongest possible versions of these rules finalized by the end of this year.
Here at Moms, we are working hard to push EPA to live up its mission to protect human health and the environment, and we are counting on you to partner with us. Each time you sign a petition, share a petition, and share what you know about these rules with people in your community, you are helping to solve the pressing crisis of air pollution and climate change. Together we are powerful, and we won’t stop working until all our families breathe clean air and live in a safe climate.