By: Cynthia Palmer, Senior Analyst, Petrochemicals
Date: June 3, 2026
About: Docket No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-3297
To: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
I’m Cynthia Palmer, Senior Analyst for Petrochemicals at Moms Clean Air Force. I oppose any EPA proposal to delay or roll back the criteria air pollution standards for so-called light and medium duty vehicles.
I’m a bicycle commuter in DC and VA. My bike has been my daily transportation for 20 years. For many of those years, I pulled my children in a trailer behind my bicycle.
There are tens of thousands of us bike-commuters in the DC area. We ride because it’s the most efficient, affordable, environmentally sound way to get around. Our bikes get us to our jobs, schools, after-school sports, grocery stories, and other activities. Survey after survey confirms that bicycle commuters are the happiest commuters.
But now, under your administration, people who ride bikes are under assault—and not just from the supersized SUVs and pickup trucks on our roads.
- Your administration has threatened to rip out our bicycle lanes. We’ve been staging protests and going to court, and so far we have prevailed.
- And now, your EPA wants to delay and roll back air quality standards for cars and SUVs, withholding from us the chance at less filthy air.
Bicycle commuters almost literally suck the exhaust from the tailpipes of the vehicles we ride or wait behind.
These chemicals are linked to cancer, heart disease, asthma, Alzheimer’s and other conditions.
Invisible particulates penetrate deep into our lungs, inflaming our airways, harming our health and that of our children.
The nitrogen oxides and carcinogenic VOCs, like benzene and formaldehyde, create smog, winning the DC area an F grade for ozone from the American Lung Association.
At times of heavy air pollution, children’s bike buses have to resort to cars to get to school, only adding tailpipe pollution and traffic to these worst-polluted days. And meanwhile, many people don’t have that luxury of switching modes, whether to care for elderly or to get to their jobs.
It is extremely disappointing that EPA would withhold highly achievable life-saving emissions standards that were supposed to go into effect for model year 2027. For our health and our children’s health, we beg you to reconsider.
Thank you.