I call south Louisiana home, and between the tornadoes and the hurricanes that we experience, I have felt the impacts of the climate crisis firsthand.
In early April, the Environmental Protection Agency heard three days of compelling and thorough testimony from people from all walks of life about why we need a rapid transition to 100 percent zero-emission trucks and buses.
They heard from physicians and scientists, kids, environmentalists, parents, people living in frontline communities (near major highways and warehouse distribution centers), and each person offered a story about why a strong federal clean trucks rule is important to them. Here’s my “why”: I come from a family of truck drivers and folks who work in freight, and I know that they would have been grateful for an opportunity to drive cleaner vehicles and then go home to communities that were not divided by highways.
Rules like the EPA’s clean trucks rule are important to my community and my family, because they will have a direct impact on mitigating the climate crisis and also on the health of my family members that work in this industry. We have no time to waste.
I would love to see communities like mine, both in New Orleans and in Baton Rouge, thriving and no longer having to live with this sort of daily pollution. Living in Louisiana, we rely on the federal government to set the standard because frankly, our state is not going to do it.
It would be devastating to know that the EPA listened to community members asking for a policy that would improve their lives, and caved to industry instead.
The EPA must not weaken its rule through any giveaways such as credits or multipliers to manufacturers that erode the strength of the clean truck standards and allow more new polluting vehicles to hit the road and pollute our communities for decades.
It is a big deal that this rule is happening. The EPA must adhere to its own mission of protecting human health and the environment and deliver an ambitious final rule.