Moms Clean Air Force staff and members make news throughout the country!
METHANE PROTECTIONS MATTER
In Santa Fe’s The New Mexican, member Penny Aucoin shares what it’s like to live within 300 feet from oil and gas operations. In her moving account of why methane protections matter, she argues that the Trump administration’s attacks on methane safeguards are not only unwarranted, but immoral: “We need EPA to protect our health, not financial interests of the oil and gas industry.”
In related news, Moms Clean Air Force was one of several dozen groups that wrote a letter to the EPA in opposition of the methane rule rollback, as reported by the Albuquerque Journal.
In an article written by Dominique Rémy for online Latin culture magazine Remezcla titled, “Environmental Justice: These Latina activists Are on the Frontlines,” three of our Moms Clean Air Force staff and state coordinators – Gabriela Rivera (regional field manager), Columba Sainz (Arizona state coordinator) and Nicole Hernandez Hammer (former Florida organizer) – are highlighted.
MOMS DEFEND CLEANER CARS
Our moms continue to express outrage over the decision by some automakers to back efforts to block tighter emission standards. In this Public News Service article, our Pennsylvania field organizer Vanessa Lynch spoke about her sense of betrayal: “‘Toyota is working with Trump to dismantle one of the most important public health laws of our times, the Clean Air Act.’ Lynch’s family makes clean air and fighting climate change a high priority and put aside money to buy a Toyota hybrid car. She says the brand’s alignment with the administration is extremely disappointing.”
Meanwhile, in New York, Moms Clean Air Force writer, Alexandra Zissu, who recently purchased a Toyota hybrid, also spoke to Public News Service about her shock in learning that Toyota (and other automakers) sided with the Trump administration.
MOMS’ RAPID RESPONSE TO BREAKING NEWS
When a chemical manufacturing plant in Southeast Texas with a long history of environmental violations was rocked by multiple explosions just before Thanksgiving, National Field Director Heather McTeer Toney was on the phone to Texas Tribune to weigh in on the connection between this incident and the EPA’s recent gutting of safety regulations designed to prevent and mitigate chemical disasters: “What we can say with all certainty is that rules like this are critical to ensuring that we’re at least aware and are doing everything that we can to prevent these types of explosions.”
Char-Koosta News, the official Flathead Indian news publication out of Pablo, Montana, published news of Senator Jon Tester’s objection to the EPA’s disregard for scientific studies in policy making. Montana field organizer Melissa Nootz states that “limiting the science that EPA can use to set health-protective standards is a deeply flawed strategy that will harm our kids.”
HOW WE TRANSITION OFF OF FOSSIL FUELS
In the Des Moines Register, Iowa field organizer Karin Stein penned a letter to the editor explaining why a rapid transition to climate-safe energy by midcentury is necessary for Iowans: “Reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and reaching a 100% clean economy with zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, as outlined in the 100% Clean Economy Act just introduced in the U.S. House, is a necessary goal.”
In Mexico, Moms Clean Air Force’s Spanish-language media statement in support of the groundbreaking 100% Clean Economy Act in the House of Representatives was quoted by three news outlets: Mi Ambiente, Juan Carlos Machorro’s blog post and Sitquije. You can read this statement in English here.
MOMS ON THE MOVE
Former San Antonio, Texas organizer Dee Dee Belmares was named as Public Citizen’s organizer for the city. Belmares credits her work at Ecomadres (a partnership between Moms Clean Air Force and Green Latinos) for giving her a grounding in how to bring Latino communities together to address climate change.
Climate communicator and Moms Clean Air Force member Cara Fleischer penned a guest column in the Tallahassee Democrat about her participation in the United Nations COP25 climate conference in Madrid, Spain as a Christian Observer.
MOM-IN-CHIEF REFLECTS ON GREAT OUTDOORS
The New York Times annual review of holiday books is out and Moms Clean Air Force co-founder and senior director Dominique Browning reviews nine books on the great outdoors. In her review of “How to Know the Birds,” she invites her readers to consider the state of our feathered friends: “All of us should be heartsick over a recent report from the journal Science on the staggering losses among the citizens of our skies: birds.”
TELL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE: IT’S BEYOND TIME FOR CLIMATE SAFETY