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Resource Library / Air Pollution / Cars and Trucks

Testimony: Tonya Howard Calhoun, 2021, EPA Reconsideration of SAFE 1 Hearing

Testimony

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By: Tonya Howard Calhoun, 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 taking the time to listen to my testimony. My name is Dr. Tonya Calhoun, and I am an aunt, godparent, and movement momma. I am a Georgia-based National Field Manager for Moms Clean Air Force, an organization of over 1.5 million moms and dads united to protect our children’s health from air pollution and climate change. I am here to testify in support of this administration’s proposal to reinstate state authority to set stronger clean car standards.

Pollution hits home for me. As a Louisiana native, I learned firsthand just how devastating air pollution can be. At the age of eight, I developed severe respiratory issues that nearby manufacturing and power plants only made worse. In my adopted home of Atlanta, Georgia, air pollution is also a problem. The American Lung Association’s annual State of the Air report recently gave the city a failing grade for air quality, ranking it 35th in ozone pollution and 31st for particle pollution.

The transportation sector contributes to a large part of this pollution, as it is the largest source of carbon pollution in the US. Pollution from cars and trucks dirties our air and threatens our health and can lead to increased respiratory disease like asthma. Over 26 million people in the US—including more than 6 million children—suffer from asthma. To make an even finer point, across Georgia, approximately 250,000 children and nearly 620,000 adults suffer from asthma. The number of children with asthma could fill Mercedes Benz Stadium about three and a half times. Exposure to transportation pollution is a public health crisis that not enough people are talking about.

At Moms Clean Air Force, it is my pleasure to advocate for, share the stories of, and be the voice for Atlantans who feel as if they have none—especially children—as they are more likely to have complications from air pollution due to developing lungs, high activity levels, and high rates of asthma. The limits on vehicle pollution that protect them should never have been rolled back—particularly when battling a public health crisis that is especially lethal for those, like me, with respiratory trouble. Georgians deserve to breathe clean air. We ALL deserve to breathe clean air!

We must allow states to protect their families from the climate crisis. Currently, strong clean car standards are the best tool we have in our toolbox to fight climate change.

Once again, I support the proposal to reinstate state authority, and encourage you to set strong federal clean car standards as well, to achieve our climate goals and protect children’s health.

Thank you for this opportunity today.

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