By: Michelle Uberuaga, Montana 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
Thank you so much for your time. I am grateful for your work. You have an incredibly important job and laudable mission: “to protect human health and the environment.”
My name is Michelle Uberuaga. I am a mother of three and a member of Moms Clean Air Force. I live on Apsaalooke land in southwest Montana. I work full-time running a community-based conservation group here in Yellowstone’s northern gateway.
I am testifying today to thank you for your work cleaning up truck pollution and to ask you to approve California’s waiver request in full, allowing the state to create the strongest possible limits on heavy duty vehicle pollution.
Pollution from vehicles and ozone does not stop at the state lines. We live right off interstate 90 here in my small town in Montana. My home, like so many other homes in Montana, is just 50 yards away from the freeway. We are impacted by truck pollution and the decision you make for California.
Livingston is a small town in a rural county on the northern edge of Yellowstone National Park. You might imagine that we have pretty good air quality, but like every other place, we experience local pollution from vehicles. It’s inescapable.
In our little town, the freeway closes when the weather gets bad, or the winds are too high, which is frequent occurrence here, and heavy truck traffic is rerouted right through our downtown, right down main street, right past our elementary school. Sometimes traffic gets backed up for several miles. Semis, cars, trucks slowly inch through town, past schools, restaurants, and sidewalks. You can see the pollution in the air.
We can and we must do better for our kids and for our communities.
An estimated 6 million children under 18 suffer from asthma, my son has three kids on his soccer team that have asthma. My husband is the coach and he has to make judgment calls about whether it’s safe to practice or play games. Parents should not be making these decisions. Thinking back on my childhood I can remember one time that a kid had an asthma attack at school. It was very scary. Now, as a parent, inhalers are a part of play dates, and the number of kids that I know that experience asthma is astonishing. And those numbers are much higher in historically marginalized communities in urban areas, and the data is clear, communities of color are among the hardest hit. That’s not okay, that’s not fair. We can and must do better and California wants to do better.
We need your help. Local families and communities can work together to protect themselves from dangerous pollution, but we shouldn’t have to, and many especially vulnerable communities just don’t have the resources or time. We need your leadership to allow states like California to protect vulnerable children across our country from air pollution and climate change. All you have to do right now is say yes.
And is the time for the country to rapidly transition to zero-pollution vehicles. As many speakers have already stated, we are at a tipping point. Every decision you make to reduce pollution today, matters. I really want you to understand the urgency of this work to my family, and so many other Montana families. We had a long dry winter with a worryingly low snowpack. And then huge amounts of spring rain and snow led to historic flooding in Yellowstone and it’s gateway communities, like mine. Our communities have been devastated. We lost much of our winter snowpack, which is the water we need to make it through the summer. Now we are worrying about wildfires. And my community is not the only community that is suffering from extreme weather and the climate crisis. It’s happening all over the country.
My kids are still pretty young, but they know that something is not right. There wasn’t much snow this year at all. And then it came. And they watched the flood waters rise. We housed evacuees in our home. We sandbagged to save our community. We are still helping our friends and neighbors. Climate change is impacting every part of our lives—our economy and our way of life in Montana. Our kids are counting on you to take action to protect their future. At the local level we are rallying together to do everything we can in the midst of crisis. Now we need you to do your part. We are asking for leadership from you at the federal level.
For these reasons, I urge the EPA to allow California to adopt the strongest possible standards for trucks. We need everyone at all levels of our government to do everything they can to protect our children and our communities from the climate crisis.
We can and must support states that are working to protect vulnerable communities from air pollution and climate change. I want my kids to know that we did everything we could to protect their future.
Thank you again for your time and your consideration.