By: Elizabeth Brandt, National Field Manager, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: May 9, 2023
About: Environmental Protection Agency Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2018-0794
To: Environmental Protection Agency
Hello, and thank you so much for listening to my testimony today. My name is Elizabeth Brandt. I am a social worker and a National Field Manager for Moms Clean Air Force. Moms Clean Air Force is an organization of more than 1.5 million parents and caregivers across America who are taking action against air pollution and climate change. Our members have fought to protect our children from mercury pollution from power plants for a decade.
Moms Clean Air Force strongly supports EPA’s proposed new protections against mercury and other forms of air pollution coming from coal-fired power plants. These standards are critical for protecting children’s developing brains from mercury and other toxic heavy metals, and they will help hold coal plants accountable for their pollution. We call on EPA to finalize the strongest possible safeguards to protect the health of children and families by the end of the year.
Mercury is a dangerous heavy metal that harms the developing brains of babies and children. Hundreds of thousands of newborns born in the US each year are at risk of learning disabilities and loss of IQ due to prenatal exposure to mercury. As a social worker, I supported families of children with intellectual disabilities for many years. It is difficult for a child and family to thrive while coping with the stigma, daily life challenges and expense of supporting a member with an intellectual disability. Preventing learning and intellectual disabilities is a worthy investment!
Moms is proud to be an associate member of the National Tribal Air Association, and we have worked with NTAA to create a joint resource on the disproportionate impact of climate change and air pollution. Tribes participating in NTAA have let us know they are particularly concerned about the disproportionate impact of mercury pollution on Indigenous children and families. The disproportionate impact of mercury pollution on people who traditionally rely on fish and marine mammals for food is unfair and needs to be strongly considered in any analysis of whether any mercury related policy provides adequate health protections.
In the United States, many communities rely on seafood for their livelihoods. I was never inclined to be a commercial fisher, but many of my friends and relatives have worked in this industry. Fishing is an old livelihood among the Scandinavian part of my family, which brought their skills to the fisheries in the great lakes and later Washington State. As a young person in Alaska, I occasionally baited halibut lines to make extra money—halibut is one of the fish that people are often advised against eating as it can be high in mercury. Fishing is an important industry in many parts of America and an important cultural practice. The burden of avoiding mercury contamination needs to be shifted from fishers and those who eat fish to the common source—power plants.
Once again, I strongly support EPA’s proposal to strengthen the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards and ask that EPA finalize these standards as quickly as possible. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.