Yesterday, Mothers & Others For Clean Air’s Dr. Anne Mellinger-Birdsong spoke at an EPA hearing on California’s 3 requests for waivers for Clean Trucks, Low NOx (nitrogen oxides) Regulation, and HD (Heavy Duty) Emission Warranty Regulation.
She explained why this is good for people in other states including Georgia, and why EPA should grant the waiver requests.
Because California has had serious air pollution problems for decades and already had clean air regulations when the EPA was formed and the Clean Air Act passed, it was granted the ability to request waivers to have stronger standards than EPA sets for the country as a whole.
After you read more about the waiver requests, submit your own comments to the EPA supporting California waiver requests for 1) Clean Trucks, 2) Low Nox, and 3) Heavy Duty Emissions. (There are 3 different comment pages but you can submit the same comment to all 3.)
Read Dr. Anne’s testimony and learn more about how this helps us all:
Mothers & Others For Clean Air strongly supports granting California the cleaner truck waivers that is has applied for. California has very serious problems with health-damaging air pollution, and needs these cleaner truck standards as soon as possible to protect public health. But not only do the waivers protect public health in California, they protect public health all over the country. Other states follow California standards, and California standards mean that more clean trucks are part of the mix on highways all over the country. Between the other states that follow California standards, and the fact that air pollution crosses state borders, the California standards improve health for people all over the country, including where I live in Georgia.
Trucks are a major contributor to air pollution in cities and the air pollution they create or increase formation of, includes nitrogen oxides, particulates, and ozone. This traffic-related air pollution is very damaging to health. Just this week the Health Effects Institute released a meta-analysis of traffic related air pollution, showing that it causes increased mortality for all-cause, circulatory, ischemic heart disease, and lung cancer, causes new onset asthma in children and adults, and lower respiratory tract infections in children.
Not only that, because of red-lining and other forms of environmental racism, communities of color have had more highways and trucking distribution centers built in or near them, and therefore have more exposure to health-damaging air pollution.
As a pediatrician, I know that air pollution is very harmful to children, and that children do not have equal exposure to air pollution. Children spend more time outside and breathe more air for their weight than adults. As stated earlier, traffic related air pollution is strongly linked to asthma in children. If you have ever had to give a breathing treatment to a child struggling to breathe during an asthma attack, it is not something you will ever forget.
Nitrogen oxides and particulate air pollution damage children’s lung growth through the teen years, so that their lungs end up smaller than normal. This sets them for a lifetime of lung problems when they are adults.
A recent Lung Association report found that transition to zero emissions energy and transportation, including trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles, would provide billions of dollars in health benefits and prevent tens of thousands of premature deaths.
And again, because exposure is so inequitable, communities of color would benefit more from the health benefits from reduced truck air pollution.
Mothers & Others For Clean thinks there is enough health harm from truck air pollution, that California and the EPA are well within their duties to regulate truck air pollution to protect health, especially the health of vulnerable populations such as children, pregnant women, and communities of color.
I urge EPA to quickly approve these waivers, which will protect public health, and prevent deaths, asthma, and lower respiratory infections.
References:
Forestiere, Lurmann, et al. Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Selected Health Effects of Long-Term Exposure to Traffic-Related Air Pollution. 2022: https://www.healtheffects.org/publication/systematic-review-and-meta-analysis-selected-health-effects-long-term-exposure-traffic.
Bekkar, et al. Association of Air Pollution and Heat Exposure With Preterm Birth, Low Birth Weight, and Stillbirth in the US: A Systematic Review. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.8243
Perera, et al. Prenatal Airborne Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Exposure and Child IQ at Age 5 Years. www.pediatrics.org/cgi/doi/10.1542/peds.2008-3506
Garcia, et al. Association of Changes in Air Quality With Incident Asthma in Children in California, 1993-2014. JAMA. doi:10.1001/jama.2019.5357
Gauderman, et al. Association of Improved Air Quality with Lung Development in Children. NEJM doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1414123
Horne, et al. Short-Term Elevation of Fine Particulate Matter Air Pollution and Acute Lower Respiratory Infection. doi: 10.1164/rccm.201709-1883OC
Wang, et al. Association Between Long-term Exposure to Ambient Air Pollution and Change in Quantitatively Assessed Emphysema and Lung Function. JAMA doi:10.1001/jama.2019.10255
Abrams, et al. Impact of air pollution control policies on cardiorespiratory emergency department visits, Atlanta, GA, 1999-2013. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2019.01.052
Peters, et al. Air Pollution and Dementia: A Systematic Review. doi:10.3233/JAD-180631
Bowe, et al. Particulate Matter Air Pollution and the Risk of Incident CKD and Progression to ESRD. doi:10.1681/ASN.2017030253
Di, et al. Air Pollution and Mortality in the Medicare Population. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1702747
Tessum, et al. PM2.5 polluters disproportionately and systemically affect people of color in the United States. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abf4491
Mikati, et al. Disparities in Distribution of Particulate Matter Emission Sources by Race and Poverty Status. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2017.304297
Thind, et al. Fine Particulate Air Pollution from Electricity Generation in the US: Health Impacts by Race, Income, and Geography. DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.9b02527
American Lung Association. Zeroing in on Healthy Air: A National Assessment of Health and Climate Benefits of Zero-Emission Transportation and Electricity. 2022: https://www.lung.org/clean-air/electric-vehicle-report.
07/01/22
