By: Elizabeth Hauptman, Michigan Field Organizer
Date: June 3, 2026
About: Docket No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-3297
To: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
I’m Elizabeth Hauptman. I live in Livingston County, and I’m the Michigan field organizer with Moms Clean Air Force. We have over 34,000 members here in Michigan, and more than 1.6 million nationally, all fighting for clean air for the sake of our children’s health and future.
- As a mom to a son who struggles with asthma, today’s this decision is deeply concerning. Delaying critical safeguards for light and medium duty vehicles will move us in the wrong direction at a time when families urgently need more protection from dangerous tailpipe pollution, not less. The health impacts from being exposed to Tailpipe pollution can include asthma attacks, which directly impacts my son. Weakening these protections endangers our communities and puts our children at greater risk..
- Air pollution harms all of us, but children are disproportionately affected- it impacts their developing brains, bodies, and lungs. Children breathe more rapidly, they are smaller, and their bodies and brains are still growing, making them more vulnerable to every ounce of pollution in the air.
Michigan has some of the highest asthma rates in the country, according to the American Lung Association. My son and niece both have asthma. In our home, we regularly check weather reports to determine whether it is safe to go outside. Twelve Michigan counties already have failing air quality grades. Genesee, Ingham, Monroe, Saginaw, and Wayne Counties, along with the city of Detroit, have asthma hospitalization rates significantly higher than the state as a whole.
The burden is not shared equally. Latino children are twice as likely to die from asthma, and Black children are ten times more likely to die from asthma than white non-Hispanic children. Rolling back these standards will only deepen these inequities.
Children who live near highways or large industrial facilities face even greater exposure. In Detroit alone, approximately 69,000 residents live within 150 meters of a major freeway, and 58 public schools, with an estimated 24,490 students, are within 200 meters of a major roadway. These children breathe in pollution every day. They deserve immediate relief, not a two-year delay.
The vehicles affected by these standards will be on the road for decades. The choices made now will shape our air quality and our children’s health far into the future.
I urge you to reconsider this delay . For the sake of my son and the children of Michigan, we need action that moves us forward. Please do not stall their future—our children cannot afford to be left idling in harmful emissions. Children need action that moves us forward, not decisions that put their futures at greater risk.
Thank you.