By Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
I’m deeply disappointed by the Obama White House’s decision last week to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from imposing stronger clean air standards on big polluters.
These changes simply needed the White House’s approval to go into effect. And with one in ten kids in Rhode Island already suffering from asthma, these changes could not come soon enough. In fact, it’s already been 15 years since the EPA updated their guidelines based on science.
Since then, science has shown that smog-causing ozone pollution leads to more asthma attacks, more lung disorders, more heart problems, and more preventable deaths -- not to mention more of the “bad air” days Americans experience here in Rhode Island and across the country.
I’m grateful that President Obama has stood up for other clean air regulations in the past, but we must make clear that that doesn’t make last week’s decision any less unfortunate.
Tell President Obama you’re disappointed in his decision to overrule his own EPA Administrator’s science-based recommendations, letting big, industrial polluters off the hook and putting our children’s health at risk.
We know the upside of stronger clean air standards. Stronger clean air standards would save 12,000 lives annually, encourage the clean energy sector to continue investing in solutions that create jobs, and save us millions of dollars in health care.
For a state like Rhode Island, where even if we stopped all pollution from Rhode Island sources, we would still have to declare “bad air” days simply on account of being downwind from out-of-state polluters -- the scheduled EPA clean air standards would have finally given us a fighting chance at clean air for our kids.
The truth is we know that the vast majority of Americans support stronger environmental protections; this is exactly the kind of fight we can and must win for the good of the people. But caving to big polluters only bolsters the ongoing right-wing effort to dismantle the EPA entirely.
Sign my petition to President Obama if you share my disappointment in his decision.
Sincerely,
Sheldon Whitehouse
U.S. Senator
