By: Elizabeth Brandt, National Field Manager, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: May 9, 2023
About: Environmental Protection Agency Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2022-0829
To: Environmental Protection Agency
Hi, my name is Elizabeth Brandt. I’m a National Field Manager for Moms Clean Air Force. When my kids and I talk about air pollution, they identify vehicles as the biggest culprit. While I know that they are talking about the view from our bus stop, along a Maryland State Highway, they aren’t wrong. Pollution from the transportation sector is a major source of air pollution as well as the nation’s leading source of climate-warming carbon pollution.
EPA’s proposed multipollutant emissions standards for light- and medium-duty vehicles (“Clean Car Standards”) are an important step forward in protecting our families from dangerous tailpipe pollution, which is a significant contributor to climate change and other harmful health impacts. Parents around the country want to see a rapid transition to zero-emissions vehicles. Moms Clean Air Force is calling on EPA to finalize the strongest possible clean cars standards this year.
While I find the impacts of climate change to be extremely concerning in Maryland, I am even more concerned about the impacts I’ve seen in Washington State, where I grew up. As I plan a family trip to see my relatives this summer, I know that I need a plan for smoke. If we camp, we need to have somewhere else we can stay if wildfire smoke makes the air quality dangerous. If there is a heatwave, like the one that fried Seattle in June of 2021, we will need to have access to a place with air conditioning, which can be hard to find in the Northwest, where the weather has historically been mild.
All of this points to a larger concern—not everyone is able to access a safe place when the air and weather is hazardous. Years ago, I worked on a public health project focused on migrant farm workers in Oregon. One thing I learned is that migrant farmworker camps are just that—camps. People live in cinder block structures that can’t be closed to the elements. Taping your window seams shut, as my sister did during a terrible smoke event, is not possible.
Also, once extreme heat is predicted there is tremendous pressure to get high value crops harvested. Think about a strawberry field in 100-degree weather—what you’ve got is a field of strawberry jam. There’s an incentive to work hard even as the temperature and air quality is worsening. Latinos are disproportionately represented in the outdoor workforce, and outdoor workers are 35 times more likely to die from heat exposure—a key climate risk—than the general population. Tackling climate pollution at its source is a matter of environmental justice.
The health-harming impacts of tailpipe pollution, from climate change to the toll of breathing polluted air, disproportionately impact communities of color. Stronger clean cars standards will help advance environmental justice. To protect the health of our communities and reduce the greenhouse gas pollution causing dangerous and costly climate change, EPA must ensure that car pollution standards are as strong as possible to speed our transition to zero-emissions vehicles (ZEVs).