By: Nicole Marcot, Michigan Supermom, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: August 26, 2021
About: Environmental Protection Agency Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2021-0208
To: Environmental Protection Agency
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Nicole Marcot, and I am a volunteer with Moms Clean Air Force from Detroit, Michigan. As the mother of three young children, as well as an educator in a predominantly low-income section of the city, I am deeply concerned about the effects air pollution and climate change have on the health of my community and on our children’s future. Therefore, I support this administration’s proposal to strengthen greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and light trucks.
My community in Detroit is a low-wealth community near a major highway system. My parents, who live in the same neighborhood as us, suffer from asthma, as do many other people in my neighborhood (as many as 15% of adults and 11% of children in Detroit suffer from asthma). As an educator, I have frequently witnessed children missing school because of asthma. In addition to asthma, heart disease is a major health concern. In the past year and a half, three of my neighbors have passed away from health issues related to heart disease. According to Yale University, vehicles are the leading cause of air pollution, and this pollution causes a variety of health issues in humans, including asthma and heart disease. Residents of my community are predominately people of color, and studies have shown that low-wealth and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) communities experience disproportionate harm from dirty vehicle pollution, leading to racial disparities in rates of asthma and heart disease.
Aside from the direct impacts of air pollution, we have been hit with drastically increasing amounts of extreme weather. Just last week, we were without electricity for six days due to a storm that swept through southeast Michigan and left close to a million customers without power (please note that once again it is low-income communities that suffer the most from extreme weather. Wealthy communities in the suburbs had their electricity restored much sooner). This extreme weather is a direct result of a climate change and will only grow worse if immediate and strong action is not taken. The future of my three young daughters is at stake, along with the lives of children across Detroit, Michigan, the US, and the world.
Given that the transportation sector is the largest source of carbon pollution in the US, cleaning up vehicle pollution is one of the most important things we can do to fight climate change. I am urging the EPA to set the strongest possible federal clean car standards through 2026, avoiding loopholes and putting automakers on track to meet ambitious pollution reduction goals.