By: Laurie Anderson, Colorado 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
My name is Laurie Anderson, and I am a Colorado Field Organizer with Moms Clean Air Force. I am raising my family along the northern front range in Colorado, in the heart of the Wattenberg Field—the most heavily developed and lucrative portion of the DJ Basin—where our communities are already impacted by pollution from large-scale oil and gas development, and where we remain in severe ozone nonattainment—meaning our air does not meet EPA’s health‑based standards and families are already breathing unhealthy levels of pollution.
Moms Clean Air Force strongly opposes EPA's proposal to redefine "begin actual construction." This proposal would allow polluters to begin construction on major new pollution sources before communities have a voice—putting children's health at risk and making it nearly impossible to stop harmful facilities once construction has begun. Economic development must only occur in a thoughtful and considered way that does not impair human health and quality of life.
One of the most important opportunities that communities have to weigh in on new pollution sources is through the public process. This process is important for public health and economic reasons, as it allows for analysis to ensure the new or modified existing facility will not violate health-based air quality standards.
The public process is critical to communities, but it only works if communities actually have the opportunity to raise concerns before a project is effectively a done deal. When shovels are already in the ground, the foregone conclusion is that the project will move forward regardless of legitimate community concerns. Companies do not invest large sums of money in pre-construction development unless they believe their project will move forward. Communities must be afforded the chance to weigh in before a pollution source locks them into decades of added health risk.
Local residents often know their communities best. In Colorado, I have heard families referred to dismissively as “RBUs”—residential building units—which delegitimizes the concerns of parents, children, and people with underlying health conditions—taking their lived experience out of the equation as they are only viewed as a residential building unit. This is unacceptable. For a pregnant woman, a parent of a child with asthma, or a family already living with cumulative pollution burdens, their concerns are essential to this conversation and must be addressed before any permits are issued.
Allowing companies to excavate land, build foundations, and install site infrastructure before they have even applied for air pollution permits sends a clear message that community input does not matter. The permitting process is intended to ensure that economic development happens responsibly—protecting human health and accounting for cumulative pollution burdens. But this proposal would undermine the very purpose of preconstruction review.
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. In Colorado, many communities already face some of the most challenging air‑quality conditions in the nation and the Denver-Aurora-Greely monitoring zone was ranked 8th worst in the nation for ozone pollution.
Communities like Globeville-Elyria-Swansea, known as GES—the most polluted zip code in Colorado—continues to bear a high burden of pollution from the Suncor Refinery, the most polluting refinery in the nation. It is unfathomable to think that additional industrial development could be green lit without pre-construction air pollution review, further impacting families who are already facing medical impacts and financial costs from pollution
And GES is not the only community at risk. Colorado is seeing increasing development proposals from oil and gas operations, data centers, and the need for more new power generation facilities to meet the growing energy demand of these operations. Weakening pre‑construction protections now would expose many more communities to long‑term harm.
The New Source Review program is one of the most powerful tools communities have to protect public health and ensure careful analysis occurs before a new pollution source is built. These protections must be maintained.
Moms Clean Air Force strongly opposes EPA's proposal to redefine "begin actual construction." Economic development must take place in a thoughtful and considered way that does not impair human health and quality of life.
Thank you for your time and for your commitment to protecting the health of families and communities across the country.