By: Elizabeth Hauptman, Michigan State Coordinator, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: June 28, 2022
About: Waiver Requests for California's Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT), Zero Emission Airport Shuttle, and Zero-Emission Power Train Certification Regulations; Omnibus Low NOx Regulation; and HD Emission Warranty Regulation, Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2022-0331
To: Environmental Protection Agency
My name is Elizabeth Hauptman, and on behalf of Moms Clean Air Force’s nearly 33,000 members throughout Michigan, I’m asking the EPA to allow California to set stronger standards for tailpipe pollution. Since the earliest days of his presidency and through subsequent executive orders, President Biden and his administration promised bold action to set strong rules and standards to lower emissions from the transportation sector, including from medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, including granting the authority of California to set more stringent emissions standards—as EPA has done many times before—and for other states to adopt those stronger standards.
These rules must be strengthened this year to protect the health of our communities. The EPA must enact standards that put the American truck and bus fleet on a clear roadway to 100% zero-emission sales by 2035.
Pollution harms all of us, but disproportionately impacts children. My son has asthma, and his disease is made worse by air pollution. Children are more impacted by air pollution for many reasons. They breathe more rapidly than adults, spend more time outdoors, and are more physically active than adults, thus exposing their still-developing lungs to more air pollution. Kids are also smaller, living closer to the ground than the rest of us, standing just about tailpipe high, where concentrations of pollution from these trucks, and buses is coming directly at them.
Pollution can lead to increased asthma rates in kids, and poor air quality can exacerbate asthma, causing more asthma attacks, resulting in millions of missed school days for kids across the country and, often, missed workdays for adults. In the summertime, we need to watch our weather app to see if it's safe for our son to play outdoors. As a mother who has seen the fear in her son's face as his chest tightens and he gasps to breathe, we must do more to protect him and children who suffer from this chronic illness. We have far too often have had to rush home after a soccer game on hot summer days to use his nebulizer.
Furthermore, childhood asthma rates are significantly higher for children of color. Latino children are twice as likely to die from asthma, and Black children are 10 times more likely to die from asthma than white, non-Hispanic kids. These statistics make it abundantly clear that strong clean car standards and a shift to zero-emission vehicles is an environmental and social justice issue—our children deserve justice in every breath.
That is why the EPA should let California set strong rules and standards to lower emissions from the transportation sector, including from medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, including granting the authority of California to set more stringent emissions standards—as EPA has done many times before—and for other states to adopt those stronger standards.
Strengthening truck and bus emission standards are the best tool we have in our toolbox to fight climate change. This urgent crisis is not something that we will see the impacts of some day in the distant future. We are seeing climate impacts right now, with extreme weather events like floods, storms, and heat waves. Addressing the pollution from the heavy truck and bus transportation sector to fight climate change CANNOT WAIT.
Eliminating emissions from heavy-duty vehicles, especially through a rapid transition to zero-emission vehicles, is essential for making strides toward desperately needed cleaner air in these communities and a safer climate. Zero-emission electric trucks are the best available technology to both reduce harmful NOx and climate pollution. EPA can and should use these California standards for trucks to accelerate the transition to electric trucks–to put the country’s medium- and heavy-duty fleets on a pathway to 100% zero-emission electric vehicles as quickly as possible.
Michigandars, like California residents, need strong standards to reduce air pollution and protect our health, especially for communities of color, which bear the brunt of health impacts from truck and bus pollution. Thank you.