Senate should turn back effort to let pollution cross state lines
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A race to the bottom is underway in America. We are witnessing a brazen assault on fundamental safeguards for our air and water and the health of our children. This year, the Clean Air Act itself has come under attack by corporate polluters and their allies in Congress.
The labor movement has a long history of stopping such races to the bottom by fighting for justice in the workplace and striving to protect workers' health and safety. But workplace victories like the minimum wage and the eight-hour workday would mean little if workers did not also have a safe and healthy home and community in which to raise their families, thanks to landmark protections like the Clean Air Act.
Our two organizations -- SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Environment Minnesota -- have a shared interest in protecting and improving the lives of our families and communities. That interest extends to protecting Minnesota's families from air pollution.
Minnesota's air quality is superior to that of most states, but we still have work to do. According to the Minnesota Department of Health, in 2009 asthma sent more than 20,500 people in Minnesota to the emergency room. Four thousand were hospitalized and 60 died. Asthma is exacerbated by unsafe levels of smog in our air. Seniors, people who work or exercise outside and the working poor are disproportionately affected.
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Tragically, children face the highest risk. Each year, millions of children have asthma attacks linked to poor air quality. Since infants and children generally breathe more rapidly than adults, they have a higher rate of exposure to air pollutants, and they are more susceptible to the health effects of air pollution because their immune systems are still developing. New scientific research shows that smog is dangerous at levels we once thought were safe.
We can reduce this suffering by curbing the millions of tons of harmful pollutants dumped into our air each year by coal-fired power plants and other industrial facilities - and we do not have to sacrifice to do it.
Clean air standards have contributed almost $2 trillion in benefits to the American economy since 1990 and can spark innovation that creates jobs, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA estimates that the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which uses the Clean Air Act to clean up smog and soot originating in polluting states, will save up to 200 lives each year in Minnesota and yield between $650 million and $1.6 billion in yearly health benefits for the state.
And yet, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., would undo this progress with a proposal to block the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, essentially sending pollution our way.
Under Paul's proposal, states that refuse to clean up their power plant emissions could continue to let that pollution enter states that have taken steps to clean up their power plants and others that are simply downwind from dirty sources.
This is unfair, especially for the 60,000 Minnesota kids who have asthma, by the American Lung Association's estimate. Sen. Paul's rollback could lead to as many as 34,000 premature deaths, 15,000 heart attacks and 400,000 asthma attacks for Americans annually, according to the EPA.
The tens of thousands of Minnesotans whom SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Environment Minnesota represent want clean air for their families - and they want the EPA to enforce standards that will reduce air pollution and its deadly health effects on working families.
Sen. Paul's effort is expected to receive a vote today. If it passes, it will usher in a new era marked by higher pollution, dangerous air, poor public health, fewer jobs and less economic opportunity. It will turn back the clock on public health, when so many of our core consumer protections and education priorities are also under assault.
We hope Minnesota's senators will vote against this reckless plan and oppose any effort to halt, weaken or delay life-saving clean air standards.
Michelle Hesterberg works as a field associate with Environment Minnesota. Julie K. Schnell is president of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota.
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SEIU Healthcare Minnesota represents more than 15,000 health care workers in hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and home care throughout the state. Environment Minnesota describes itself as "a statewide, citizen-based environmental advocacy organization."
