By: Patrice Tomcik, Senior National Field Manager, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: April 20, 2022
About: Federal Implementation Plan Addressing Regional Ozone Transport for the 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standard, Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2021-0668
To: Environmental Protection Agency
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
My name is Patrice Tomcik, and I am a Senior 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.
I support the ozone transport proposal and strongly recommend extending it to cover more industrial sources quickly, because our children’s health can’t wait.
Pennsylvania is on the list of states with industrial polluters that would have to clean up their air pollution under this proposal. This will allow Pennsylvania to be a Good Neighbor as the Clean Air Act requires by limiting the air pollution that leads to poor air quality downwind in other states. Additionally, this proposal will help clean up the air for communities who live nearby industrial pollution sources while encouraging more power plants to invest in clean, affordable zero-emitting power.
Currently, Pennsylvania is the fourth dirtiest power sector in the nation, which is no wonder since the state has five coal power plants that are major contributors to our air pollution problems. To further exacerbate the air pollution problems, Pennsylvania is the second largest natural gas producer in the nation. Unfortunately, this is a perfect recipe for a pollution disaster.
Nitrogen oxide pollution from coal power plants can easily combine with volatile organic compounds from the numerous oil and gas operations around me in the presence of sunlight to form ozone or smog. Smog can cause breathing problems, developmental harm, reduced lung function in children, and trigger asthma attacks.
Children are especially impacted by smog pollution due to the fact that they breathe more air per unit of body weight than adults and therefore can receive higher doses of pollution. Children exercise more and spend more time outside than adults, which means that they can breathe more outdoor air pollution. Both of my children play outdoor sports year-round. Additionally, children’s lungs are still developing until early adulthood so harmful air pollution exposures can have effects that can last a lifetime.
As a mother, I am concerned about what my children are breathing into their lungs every day, especially my youngest, who is a cancer survivor but now has a compromised immune system. I try to make his home environment as healthy as possible, but I can’t control the air my son breathes and depend on EPA to do your jobs and protect him with comprehensive and meaningful pollution protections.
I appreciate that EPA is not only requiring emissions reductions from power plants, but also from other industrial sources. Because Pennsylvania is a major natural gas producer, it is important for the ozone transport proposal to cover reciprocating combustion engines for pipeline transportation of natural gas, which is a significant air polluter. I urge EPA to expand the covered sources further to better protect the health of my children and children in downwind states who struggle with breathing as nitrogen oxide and smog blows across the state borders.
In conclusion, nitrogen oxide is a powerful air pollutant on its own, as well as being a precursor to ozone or smog and numerous other pollutants that have detrimental impacts on human health. I urge EPA to strengthen and finalize this proposal to control emissions from the industrial sources that put public health at risk from nitrogen oxide and smog pollution. Every child has the right to breathe clean air.
Thank you.