This week, Moms Clean Air Force members stood tall next to (yet socially distanced from) Senate Majority Leader Schumer and other congressional climate champions at a Washington, D.C., outdoor rally to highlight the urgent need to invest in climate solutions to address the climate crisis. Leader Schumer and other Senators speaking at the event discussed the importance of robust funding for the climate and clean energy provisions in President Biden’s $3.5 trillion budget and the “Build Back Better” act. You can watch the rally here while keeping an eye out for our families who attended the event in our signature red T-shirts.
OUR FOUNDER IN THE WASHINGTON POST
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently detailed all the ways that climate change will hit US racial monitories hardest. In response to this “first of its kind” federal acknowledgment of the racial disparities of climate change impacts, Dominique Browning, our director and co-founder, spoke to the Washington Post about the EPA report: the analysis “couldn’t be more perfectly timed. We are in such an emergency.” Dominique’s view on what we can expect from Congress: “[Dominique] added that it remains to be seen whether the Biden administration and Congress will put in place powerful enough legislation and regulation to cut pollution and slow-rising temperatures. The group is pressing the EPA, for instance, to set tougher standards for ozone and soot, two pollutants at higher levels in neighborhoods with more racial minorities.”
U.S. ENERGY SECRETARY MEETS WITH OUR NM ORGANIZER
America’s top energy official, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, recently visited New Mexico at a time when the state is leaning into renewable-energy goals. There she met with our New Mexico organizer, Celerah Hewes, who stressed the need to cut methane emissions from oil and gas operations at both the federal and state level: “We have a few things that are pretty unique about the way our legislative system works and how oil and gas functions in New Mexico. And how we can be a leader in kind of a transition away from fossil fuels.”
NOTHING IS WELL WITH ORPHAN WELLS
Keystone State News Connection quotes our Pennsylvania field organizer Vanessa Lynch about fixing leaks from several hundred “orphan” wells that contribute to our climate crisis: “When we talk about climate change and its impacts on local communities, everything from extreme-heat days to major flooding and landslide events, which are some of the most common things we see in Pennsylvania, plugging orphan wells is one of the best ways to decrease methane emissions.”
OUR WHEELS KEEP ON TURNING TOWARD ELECTRIFICATION
As part of our on-going effort to push for the electrification of school buses, our Washington, D.C. field organizer Stephanie Klein penned a letter to The Washington Post editor about her city’s potential to be a leader in electrifying its fleet of school buses: “D.C. should be a leader, not a laggard, when it comes to protecting public health, the environment and the climate. Rapidly electrifying our city’s school bus fleet is the right thing to do for D.C. schoolchildren and their families.”
In Atlanta, Georgia 41 NBC spoke with our field organizer Almeta Cooper about getting Congress to fund electric school buses. “We focus on protecting clean air and protecting the health of our children and school buses,” Almeta said. “Unfortunately, diesel school buses in particular are very serious carbon polluters and endanger the health of children.”
In Flint, Michigan Live covered our recent virtual press conference to highlight how cities like Flint can rebound with the help of electric vehicles. In a city that boomed thanks to vehicles powered by internal combustion engines, Representative Dan Kildee said that Flint can reclaim its legacy by putting “the world on electrified wheels.”
In Shepherdstown, West Virginia, our field organizer Lucia Valentine (pictured above) convened local leaders for a press conference to urge Senator Joe Manchin to support the Build Back Better budget and the future of electric vehicles. The Journal News reported that Lucia “stressed her pride in being a West Virginian, while also noting that she’s no stranger to pollution from growing up on the banks of the Potomac River.” Lucia was quoted as saying: “West Virginians deserve clean air.”
The Herald Dispatch also reported on this press conference, where Lucia discussed the importance of bold investments in clean energy production and building a pollution-free transportation sector. She said that West Virginians support investments that will be “creating good-paying jobs right here in our state, while reducing the carbon pollution that has contributed to increasing extreme weather events that we’re seeing across the country.”
Meanwhile, the state’s Gazette-Mail noted that for Lucia, the issue of acting on climate hits close to home. Lucia’s family had to leave their Shepherdstown home “due to flooding, an issue she noted global warming has exacerbated statewide.”
SHOUT-OUTS
- A feature for the New Republic on the intersection between the politics of climate and the politics of care calls out Moms Clean Air Force as a major force working to activate parents around climate policy.
- Arizona PBS spotlights [see minute 24:00] a Tempe-based electric vehicle event at which our Arizona field organizer Columba Sainz spoke.
- This is Reno reports that Moms Clean Air Force was part of a roundtable on wildfires’detrimental effect on air quality with Nevada Senator Cortez Masto.