By: Barbara Weber, California Field Organizer
Date: June 3, 2026
About: Docket No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-3297
To: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Barbara Weber, and I serve as the California Field Organizer for Moms Clean Air Force. While I am not a mother myself, I am a proud aunt, and I have spent over a decade as a climate and clean air advocate working to protect the health of future generations. I am here to strongly oppose any attempts to delay implementation of or weaken the light-duty vehicles multipollutant standards, also known as the Clean Cars Standards, because these protections are essential for public health—especially for children.
My support for strong tailpipe pollution standards is deeply personal. I live in Santa Monica, a highly car-dependent city, less than a mile from the I-10 freeway. Last year, I lived through the devastating Los Angeles fires, when air quality reached dangerous levels for days on end. At times, ash fell from the sky like rain, and even indoors, the air burned my lungs and throat. That experience made it painfully clear how vulnerable our communities are when pollution accumulates—and how critical strong protections are when wildfire smoke compounds everyday vehicle emissions.
California’s clean air policies serve as a clear, real-world case study of why strong tailpipe standards work and why they must be protected at the federal level. Before the state began aggressively addressing vehicle pollution, many regions experienced more than 150 unhealthy air quality days each year, and smog was a routine part of daily life. Since adopting nation-leading clean vehicle and tailpipe emission standards, smog-forming pollution has dropped by more than 70% since the 1990s, even as population and vehicle miles traveled have increased. Children growing up in California today show significantly better lung development and fewer asthma-related emergency room visits than previous generations. These gains did not happen by accident—they are the direct result of strong, enforceable clean air rules.
However, the benefits of cleaner air have not been shared equally. Low-income communities and communities of color are far more likely to live near highways and high-traffic corridors, a legacy of discriminatory housing and transportation decisions. Millions of Californians live within a few hundred feet of major roadways, where exposure to nitrogen oxides, soot, and other harmful pollutants is highest. Delaying implementation of or weakening the Clean Cars standards would lock in higher pollution precisely in the neighborhoods already facing the greatest health burdens.
Weakening federal protections would undermine California’s progress and deny other states the opportunity to achieve the same proven health benefits. I urge the EPA to move forward with implementing the strongest version of the Clean Cars standards. Our children, our families, and our communities deserve clean air. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.