The Impact of Moms
Over the years, Moms Clean Air Force has contributed mightily to important wins for our children on both the legislative and the regulatory fronts.
Moms Clean Air Force is the largest and oldest group organizing mothers to fight climate change and air pollution. We regularly partner with and lend support to other environmental and justice groups as we do our work together, sharing resources, data, spokespeople, and training.
Moms Clean Air Force strives to be nonpartisan—or as we like to say, Mompartisan—working toward practical, commonsense, and effective solutions on behalf of all of our children’s health.
Read our 2021 Annual Report
Historic Investments in Solutions to Climate Change
On August 16, 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 into law. This bill is a stunning achievement. It contains a historic level of investment in cutting climate pollution—$369 billion—and puts the US on a path to cut greenhouse gas emissions 40% by 2030.
Moms Clean Air Force staff and members worked for 18 months to get these unprecedented investments in clean energy and transportation passed. We sent more than 80,000 emails to members of Congress, had more than 300 meetings with congressional offices, and planned and participated in more than 100 events to raise awareness about how this funding could protect our communities and ensure climate safety. During the final two weeks before the bill was passed, when it was being considered in the Senate and then the House, we made dozens of phone calls to our members of Congress. Read more about our work to help pass this important legislation.
The Inflation Reduction Act is a smart and necessary investment in our children’s future and an incredible win for the climate community. This bill marks the beginning of a significant new chapter in our work at Moms—advocating for an equitable and safe buildout of a new, massive clean energy grid and transportation system.
Moms By the Numbers
- On the ground: In addition to our national staff, we are proud to have 16 organizers working in 14 states.
- Meeting with lawmakers: In 2021, our staff and volunteers met with their congressional lawmakers to discuss climate change and air pollution more than 250 times.
- Taking action: In 2021, our members contacted their legislators about climate and clean air issues more than 188,000 times.
- In the media: In 2021, Moms Clean Air Force appeared in more than 300 articles, broadcasts, radio shows, op-eds, and letters to the editor, in outlets large and small, national and international.
250 Meetings with Congress
by our staff and members
in 2021 to discuss climate change
and pollution.
188,000 Messages
to lawmakers
sent by our members
about climate and clean air
issues in 2021.
300 media
appearances
in 2021 — including articles,
broadcasts, radio shows,
op-eds, and more.
Legislative Wins
The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in 2016. This law was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and is designed to help protect our children from exposure to toxic chemicals. Moms Clean Air Force led the way at the grassroots level for support of this bill.
The bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Biden in November 2021. This bill invests $1.2 trillion in rebuilding and repairing roads, bridges, and railways; expanding access to clean drinking water and reliable broadband internet; creating well-paying, in-demand jobs for our families; addressing the climate crisis; and advancing environmental justice. This is the largest investment in upgrading US infrastructure in the last 70 years. Moms Clean Air Force members advocated for several important climate provisions in this bill, including funding for clean electric school buses and for the cleanup of oil and gas pollution from orphan wells.
In May 2022, EPA launched its Clean School Bus Program, which will distribute the $5 billion in clean and zero-emission school bus funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act over the next five years. Moms joined Vice President Kamala Harris and EPA Administrator Michael Regan at Meridian High School in Falls Church, Virginia, to celebrate this historic investment in electric school buses. We continue to work with EPA to ensure this money goes to the school districts that need it the most.
The Inflation Reduction Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Biden in August 2022. This once-in-a-generation legislation includes an unprecedented $369 billion investment in cutting climate pollution. Moms Clean Air Force members spent 18 months advocating for several important climate provisions in this bill, including a fee on methane pollution to push energy companies to plug methane leaks, tax credits for wind and solar power, and tax credits to help people buy electric cars. We also supported the $60 billion investment in environmental justice, including funds to address environmental health problems, improve access to transportation, improve air quality near ports, and increase air pollution monitoring.
Moms are currently working to pass bills on a range of issues, including regulating methane pollution from oil and gas operations, ensuring environmental justice, cleaning up the electric grid, protecting maternal health from the impacts of climate change, building out electric vehicle infrastructure charging stations, and electrifying school buses. Learn more about the Legislation We Support.
At heart, Moms Clean Air Force is about bringing back old-fashioned values of citizenship, and opening doors for mothers to participate in our democratic process on issues about which they care passionately, to protect our children and their future.
Regulatory Wins
Moms Clean Air Force has organized our members to advocate for health-protective pollution standards from the Environmental Protection Agency. We educate our membership, mobilize written comments to public dockets, organize and support testifiers at public hearings, meet with EPA and White House officials, collaborate with community groups and other advocacy allies, and raise our voices in local, state, and national media outlets. Major campaigns have included:
Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS)
Moms Clean Air Force was birthed in 2011 through a fight for national standards to protect babies from mercury—a brain poison that comes from coal-fired power plants. When we learned that the Trump administration wanted to undermine those standards, we made it a top priority to fight this effort every step of the way. Our perspective became central in the national conversation.
Methane
In 2016, we celebrated the finalization of EPA setting first-ever standards to limit methane emissions from oil and gas operations. But the next administration sought to roll back these vital climate and health protections. EPA’s efforts to undermine limits on methane pollution culminated in 2020, and we fought them at every turn.
In 2021, we mobilized to reinstate federal methane standards, and we won. With bipartisan votes, the House and Senate reinstated the 2016 standards and jump-started EPA efforts to strengthen a methane rule that protects families and communities from harmful air pollution and climate change. We will continue to push EPA for much-needed national protections from existing methane sources.
Clean Car Standards
Moms Clean Air Force has mobilized strong grassroots support from every part of the country to push for robust tailpipe emissions standards for passenger vehicles and light trucks, one of largest sources of climate pollution in the US. In 2020, EPA updated these standards with much weaker requirements, and Moms Clean Air Force fought this dangerous weakening with grassroots action, testimony, meetings, media outreach, and more. With an EPA now recommitted to climate action and environmental justice, Moms Clean Air Force is turning out in force to support more ambitious pollution reductions from the auto industry.
In December 2021, EPA Administrator Michael Regan announced finalized—and ambitious—Clean Car Standards for model years 2023–26 that will greatly reduce greenhouse gases and air pollution. These final protections were significantly strengthened from EPA’s original proposal after Moms Clean Air Force and our coalition partners submitted more than 200,000 comments in favor of the strongest possible protections from tailpipe pollution.
Ozone
In 2015, we joined a groundswell of grassroots support for stronger national protections from ground-level ozone, or smog, resulting in EPA lowering the standard from 75 parts per billion (ppb) to 70 ppb. In 2020, the Trump administration declined to strengthen the ground-level ozone standards, despite robust science indicating that the standards are not adequately protecting our health, and despite an outpouring of grassroots support for more protection. We are currently advocating for the EPA to fix this harmful mistake.
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