By: Jayne Black, Wisconsin Field Organizer
Date: May 28, 2026
About: Revision to “Begin Actual Construction” in the New Source Review Preconstruction Permitting Program, Docket # EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0618
To: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Jayne Black, and I am a De Pere, Wisconsin, native. I am also a state Field Organizer with Moms Clean Air Force, where we are working to protect children from the health impacts of air pollution.
On behalf of Moms Clean Air Force and our more than 17,000 members across Wisconsin, I strongly oppose the EPA's proposal to redefine "begin actual construction."
This proposal would strip away the important process, our voice and the ability to protect our children’s health from dirty air caused by companies who cause significant air pollution, by letting these polluters begin construction on major new pollution sources without:
- Analyzing local air quality impacts and ensuring the new facility (or modified existing facility) won't impair health-based air quality standards (the NAAQS)
- Considering alternatives to the proposal before money is spent and construction begins
- And giving communities a chance to weigh in before a pollution source locks them into decades of added health risk
In light of several threats and community battles of a data center coming to the town and village near my home that would have caused significant pollution from dirty fossil fuels, I know for a fact that if this protection was taken away it would amplify this threat greatly, making it far too easy for companies to pollute the air we breathe. The current permitting process gives communities an opportunity to consider the expected increase in local air pollution, and most importantly look at ways to control or offset excess emissions, and alternatives.
As a mom with two children whose health is impacted by dirty air, a son with asthma and a daughter with multiple sclerosis, this protection is one of the very few protections I have for them because it is intended to protect human health and account for cumulative pollution burdens.
Imagine your families lives in a community where a company who is going to cause significant pollution is going to build and be down the street or in your backyard like communities right here in Wisconsin are experiencing like in Port Washington, Beaver Dam, Mt Pleasan or Greenleaf or Wrightstown like me this EPA's proposal to redefine what it means to “begin actual construction” would allow companies to excavate land, build foundations, and put in site infrastructure before they've even applied for air pollution permits. Once a company has invested millions of dollars in a site, it becomes nearly impossible to stop construction, even if the community never wanted the facility in the first place. This proposal would gut the very purpose of preconstruction review.
Adding insult to injury to our communities health it would also bypass community input, and make it impossible to stop unwanted facilities, a fight going on right now with the influx of data centers across the country that is almost impossible to fight as is.
Nearly half of all children in the U.S. already live with unhealthy levels of air pollution, according to the American Lung Association's 2026 State of the Air Report. Families have a right to ask what increased pollution will mean for their children's developing lungs before construction begins, not after.
As a mom working to protect my children and all children from air pollution this protection takes away one of the most powerful tools I have in my toolbox because this protection helps to ensure careful thoughtful analysis happens before a new pollution source is built. Taking away that tool puts industry polluters over people and not just people, our children the most valuable precious gift we have is one we were all called to love and protect. This makes all of our children an afterthought, as if they do not matter.
Moms Clean Air Force strongly opposes EPA's proposal to redefine "begin actual construction."