By: Barbara Weber, California Field Organizer
Date: July 29, 2026
About: Docket No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2026-0728-0114
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 EPA’s proposal to weaken tailpipe pollution protections for heavy-duty diesel vehicles. These standards are critical to protecting public health—especially for children and communities living near freight corridors.
My concern about truck pollution is personal (as I imagine it is for everyone). I live in Santa Monica, a city shaped by car and freight traffic, near the I-10 freeway, which serves as a major corridor for delivery trucks moving goods across the Los Angeles region. Last year, during the devastating Los Angeles fires, I experienced firsthand what happens when already polluted air is pushed beyond a breaking point. For days, the air was unsafe to breathe. Ash fell from the sky, and the smell of smoke and diesel lingered even indoors. That experience underscored how dangerous cumulative pollution can be—especially when heavy-duty vehicle emissions combine with wildfire smoke and extreme heat.
I cannot imagine what it would have been like if California didn’t have its current clean truck standards. These standards have proven to work over the years—and they must be protected at the federal level. Heavy-duty vehicles make up a small share of vehicles on the road, yet they contribute a disproportionate share of nitrogen oxides and soot pollution, which are linked to asthma, heart disease, and premature death. By adopting nation-leading clean truck standards, California has driven meaningful reductions in these pollutants, delivering cleaner air even as freight activity has increased. These policies have proven that it is possible to protect public health while supporting a strong goods-movement economy.
The health stakes of rolling back clean truck standards are especially severe for low-income communities and communities of color, which are far more likely to be located near highways, ports, rail yards, and warehouses. In California, many neighborhoods sit directly alongside freight corridors, exposing families to constant diesel pollution. Children in these communities face higher rates of asthma, missed school days, and emergency room visits—not by chance, but by design, rooted in decades of discriminatory land-use and transportation decisions.
Weakening federal heavy-duty diesel vehicle protections would slow progress, increase pollution in already overburdened neighborhoods, and deny other states the opportunity to follow California’s proven model. At a time when wildfire smoke and extreme heat are already worsening air quality, we cannot afford to move backward.
I urge the EPA to maintain—not weaken—the 2022 Clean Trucks Standards. Protecting children’s health, advancing environmental justice, and safeguarding our collective future depend on it. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.