By: Shaina Oliver, Colorado Field Organizer, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: August 25, 2021
About: Environmental Protection Agency Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2021-0208
To: Environmental Protection Agency
Thank you for providing for public comment today. I want to remind everyone that we are on stolen lands of over 574 Indigenous tribes of North America. My name is Shaina Oliver, I live on the ancestral lands of the Cheyenne, Arapahoe, and Ute Nations, including the 45 tribes that once occupied the state of Colorado. I am a field organizer for Moms Clean Air Force and EcoMadres Colorado Chapter. I am an advocate for Indigenous Peoples’ Rights to clean air, water, lands, and health. Moms Clean Air Force is united in fighting for all children’s right to a safe and healthy environment.
Most importantly, I am an Indigenous mother of four. We are the descendants of the genocide known as the Indian Removal Act, known to the Dineh as “the long walk of the Navajo.” These types of policy violations have run a long historic impact on Indigenous peoples’ community, health, wealth, and environmental well-being. Its impacts continue to be felt today in the form of lack of consultation and consent with Indigenous leaders, extractive capitalism decisions made about resource extraction that continue to hurt our communities, and environmental racism that we see in our communities as people of color, often as low-income community members. As a tribal member, I have seen the devastation of degraded lands and the dwindling flocks of the birds, butterflies, and bees. Our ancestral lands continue to be sacrificed for mining, drilling, and infrastructure of all sorts.
Pollution from cars and trucks, including heavy-duty vehicles, degrades air quality and threatens our health. I support this administration’s proposal to strengthen protections for Clean Car Standards that will protect all children’s health and future. As a Colorado resident, myself and my family have experienced the worst air quality this past summer, with air quality levels above 120, according to IQAir and reported by 9News Colorado. I urge this administration to move forward on setting ambitious federal clean car standards, which would be a step in the right direction.
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. It is Indigenous, Black, Latino, and low-income communities who bear the disproportionate burden of air pollution. Segregation has led to our communities being located by highways and industrial zones that impact our health. Many people, like me, bear the health burdens of pollution, such as asthma, diabetes, heart disease, respiratory illnesses, cancer, and adverse birth outcomes. COVID-19 has become one more health burden our communities disproportionately bear.
And I’ve been living with asthma since my infancy. Worsening air quality due to heat and wildfires related to climate change has a direct impact on my ability to breathe. Protective clean car standards will save lives in communities like mine. Over 26 million people in the United States are burdened with asthma, including more than 6 million children. A recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirms that climate change is “widespread, rapid, and intensifying,” reconfirming the warnings Indigenous knowledge keepers have been raising for years. We must think of our next generation’s future and livability standards and access to clean air, water, soil, and health.
President Biden has promised to address climate change and fight for environmental justice. By acting swiftly on clean cars, the administration has taken an important first step in tackling climate pollution from transportation. The American Lung Association’s State of the Air Report for Colorado just gave us an “F” for ozone pollution, so we cannot stand by and lose another opportunity to strengthen a path to 100% zero-emissions new vehicles sales by 2035.
Colorado moms, dads, and caregivers are counting on your leadership and unity for all children’s right to breathe and play in a safe and healthy environment. Thank you.