Notable Achievements

Awards

In 2024, Moms Clean Air Force partnered with The Payback campaign to spread the word about how families are benefitting from the Inflation Reduction Act—the largest climate investment in U.S. history. This campaign, featuring Moms’ Southwest Field Organizer Ylenia Aguilar and Arizona Field Organizer Hazel Chandler, won a Silver Anthem Award for best strategy in sustainability, environment, and climate awareness. The Anthem Awards honor mission-driven work by amplifying voices that spark change, and we are honored to be among the 2024 winners.

Notable Legislative Achievements

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. Read more about our work to help pass this important legislation.

In 2023 and 2024, Moms and our Latino engagement program, EcoMadres, worked behind-the-scenes with the offices Representative Jennifer McClellan (VA-4) and Representative Nanette Diaz Barragán (CA-44) on two important congressional resolutions to protect the health of moms, babies, and children in a changing climate. The Resolution on Children and Extreme Weather, introduced by Representative McClellan at Moms’ 2024 Play-In for Climate Action, acknowledges that the physical and mental health needs of young people experiencing the climate crisis are unique—and advocates for urgently needed adaptations to keep kids safe. The Protecting Latina Maternal and Infant Health From Extreme Heat and Air Pollution Resolution, introduced by Representative Barragán  at a press conference with EcoMadres, on September 24, 2024, marks a crucial step toward improving maternal and infant health in Latino communities. By addressing the devastating impact of air pollution and extreme heat, this measure not only recognizes the risks faced by Latina mothers, but also advocates for the creation of safer and more equitable surroundings.

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, 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.

Notable Regulatory Achievements

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.

On April 25, 2024, EPA Administrator Michael Regan announced long-overdue updated MATS. The previous May, dozens of Moms staff and members gave testimony in support of these protections at EPA’s virtual public hearing; thousands more submitted written comments to the docket. We are thrilled that the new protections will address emissions from the burning of lignite coal and require continuous emissions monitoring for coal plants.

Methane

In 2016, we celebrated EPA’s finalization of the 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.

After two years of advocacy for the strongest possible protections, President Biden and EPA Administrator Michael Regan announced the finalization of a comprehensive methane rule in December 2023. Between November 2021 and the rule finalization, Moms members gave 100 testimonies at public hearings and submitted nearly 50,000 comments. The new safeguards—which will cut methane pollution from covered sources 80% by 2038—are a testament to the power of collective action.

Power Plant Pollution

On April 25, 2024, EPA Administrator Michael Regan announced the finalization of new rules to slash carbon pollution from new gas and new and existing coal power plants. The previous June, more than 60 Moms staff and members gave testimony in support of the strongest possible power plant standards at EPA’s virtual public hearing; thousands more submitted written comments to the docket. These new protections will avoid hundreds of millions of metric tons of carbon pollution through 2042 and cut tens of thousands of tons of soot, sulfur dioxide, and smog-forming nitrogen oxide pollution. This is the Mother of All Power Plant Rules.

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 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.

In March 2024, EPA announced the finalization of new standards for model years 2027–32 and beyond that will significantly cut the dangerous tailpipe pollution produced by cars, SUVs, and pickup trucks. These protections put us on a critical path to boosting the electric vehicle market share and are a huge win for the climate and our kids.

Clean Trucks Plan

In December 2022, EPA announced its Clean Trucks Plan, outlining a series of actions that the agency will take to reduce pollution from new freight trucks and buses. The plan finalizes important federal protections against nitrogen oxide (NOx) pollution from new medium- and heavy-duty diesel vehicles—significantly reducing that pollution to save thousands of lives. With the plan, EPA also committed to moving swiftly to recognize California’s separate emission standards for new freight trucks and to adopting new standards in 2023 that will chart the path to zero emissions from the freight trucks and buses in our neighborhoods and on our roadways. By leveraging the extensive investments for deploying zero-emitting vehicles laid out in the Inflation Reduction Act, the Clean Trucks Plan presents a vital modernization of EPA’s approach to protections to public health from truck pollution.

Dozens of Moms Clean Air Force members gave testimony at EPA’s public hearing in April 2022 in support of its proposal to clean up tailpipe pollution from heavy-duty trucks and buses. Thousands more sent written comments to the agency. Thanks to our advocacy, Moms Clean Air Force Texas coordinator Erandi Treviño and 10-year-old Kids Clean Air Force member Zahra Halakhe were invited to speak at the EPA event announcing the Clean Trucks Plan.

Soot Pollution

In February 2024—for the first time in over a decade—EPA finalized new protections for soot pollution, also known as particle pollution or PM 2.5. The new protections strengthened the standard from 12 to 9 micrograms per cubic meter—a significant improvement that will save lives, prevent asthma attacks, and avoid numerous other health harms. Soot pollution is a killer. In the U.S. alone, it cuts short the lives of well over 100,000 people per year, a staggering toll. This was an important step toward cleaner, healthier air for all children—and a hard-fought win for Moms Clean Air Force. Our members delivered 60 personal testimonies at the EPA hearing on this rule and more than 11,500 written comments.

Ozone Pollution

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.

Plastic and Petrochemical Pollution

In April 2024, EPA announced the finalization of historic protections against pollution from chemical manufacturing facilities. The previous spring, during the public comment period, Moms Clean Air Force delivered impactful personal testimonies and thousands of written comments urging EPA to make this important rule as strong as possible. These new protections cover more than 200 facilities across the country that generate an extraordinary amount of pollution through the production of chemicals used to make plastics, paints, synthetic fabrics, pesticides, vinyl flooring, and other petrochemical products. The burden of this pollution falls heavily on communities near these facilities, which are often historically marginalized communities of color that are impacted by multiple pollution sources. Moms celebrated this rule as a significant step forward for environmental justice.