By: Patrice Tomcik, National Field Manager, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: June 2, 2021
About: Environmental Protection Agency Reconsideration of SAFE 1 Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2021-0257
To: Environmental Protection Agency
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Patrice Tomcik, and I am a National Field Manager for Moms Clean Air Force, an organization of over 1 million moms and dads united to protect our children’s health from air pollution and climate change. I live in the town of Gibsonia, located in Southwestern Pennsylvania, with my husband and two children, where pollution from cars and trucks, including heavy-duty vehicles, degrades our air quality and contributes to climate change.
I support this administration’s proposal to reinstate state authority to set stronger clean car standards and urge you to move forward on setting ambitious federal clean car standards.
I want to share with you a typical day for my children and their pollution exposure. My children ride a diesel school bus a total of 1½ hours each day, where the inside air can be five times worse than the outside air.
Once the bus arrives at school, my children then walk into their schools, located less than 500 feet off State Route 228. Studies have shown that the highest daytime exposures of traffic pollution are within 500 feet of a busy road. On an average day, at least 10,000 vehicles and 500 trucks travel this heavily congested roadway. Closing school windows and doors can help to lessen the traffic pollutant exposures, but the reality is that fine particles, ultrafine particles, gases, and vapors are able to readily penetrate the indoors, where they can be breathed in by young lungs.
In the evening, my kids attend two-hour sports practices and games at the school sports complex located near the roadway. This is the environment my children have been exposed to since kindergarten and now through their high school years.
Unfortunately, my story is not unique since many schools across the nation are built near busy roadways because the land is cheap.
I know that children are especially impacted by pollution since their lungs and brains are still developing until early adulthood. Toxic air pollution exposures can have deleterious effects that can last a lifetime.
I am very worried about what my children are breathing into their lungs every day. My youngest son is a cancer survivor and is immune compromised. As a mother, I try to make his home environment as healthy as possible, but I know that I can’t control the air my son breathes and depend on Administrator Regan and the EPA to do your jobs. I urge you to restore states authority and move swiftly toward setting strong federal clean car standards to ensure we achieve our climate goals and protect children’s health.
Thank you.