Please call your senators, your representative, your governor, and other city and county officials. Keep calling them, over and over.
Yesterday EPA issued a new policy memo that is a sweeping suspension of enforcing environmental rules, because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The order states:
““In general, the E.P.A. does not expect to seek penalties for violations of routine compliance monitoring, integrity testing, sampling, laboratory analysis, training, and reporting or certification obligations in situations where the E.P.A. agrees that Covid-19 was the cause of the noncompliance and the entity provides supporting documentation to the E.P.A. upon request.”
It really damages our health to be exposed to more air and water pollution. And we know that air pollution makes people more susceptible to other respiratory viruses such as influenza and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), so we should expect something similar for coronavirus. Because of inequities in where refineries and power plants are located, this order will harm communities of color the most, which makes the new order even more egregious.
It doesn’t make sense to allow more air pollution during the coronavirus pandemic. And if power plants, refineries, and other polluters have enough staff to run their plant, they have enough staff to maintain compliance and do the monitoring for pollution releases. Please call!
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/27/climate/climate-pollution-coronavirus-lungs.html
