Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Guest column:

Pollution standards are an issue of priorities, basic rights

I recently delivered dozens of Valentine’s Day cards to our two Nevada senators, Dean Heller and Majority Leader Harry Reid. These Valentine’s cards were to make a point: Not only am I a concerned mother of three young children, but also I believe the right to breathe clean air is an inalienable right that should be protected. One of my youngest and most frightening memories as a child was watching my older brother struggle to breathe during an asthma attack. If you have ever witnessed a young child in the throes of an attack, you understand just how terrifying they can be.

We grew up in a town with one landfill and two oil refineries, so asthma attacks were not uncommon. I remember many of my brother’s attacks, but one particular attack stands out in my mind. I remember seeing the fear on my brother’s face as he labored with every breath and identifying the panic register on the faces of my parents as they stood by feeling helpless. I was just a young child, but even then I understood that without clean air, no one can survive for long.

As a parent today I understand that look of panic my parents felt long ago. I often feel the same way when I am trying to do everything I can to raise happy, healthy children. Lobbyists continue to make arguments that suggest clean air is something we can’t afford as a nation or that our economy would be better off with lax regulations. As a parent and as a human being, I would argue that we must do everything we can to protect our air because without it we are nothing.

Congress is currently considering several legislative proposals to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from protecting the public health with new clean air standards designed to reduce air pollution from toxic substances like mercury, arsenic, soot, smog, carbon and other pollutants. These new standards would save thousands of lives each year.

The mercury and air toxics rule would save as many as 11,000 lives, prevent as many as 130,000 asthma attacks among children and prevent as many as 4,700 heart attacks each year according to the EPA. Another proposal, the Cross State Air Pollution rule, would save as many as 34,000 lives, prevent as many as 15,000 heart attacks and prevent as many as 400,000 asthma attacks by reducing dangerous air pollution in communities downwind and often in other states from dirty power plants. The new standards for car emissions would reduce industrial carbon pollution that threatens thousands of lives and would spur innovation that will improve automobile mileage and create jobs in the auto industry.

Washington must put public health first and not do the bidding of the polluters and their lobbyists. The polluters want to dump unlimited amounts of industrial carbon pollution into the air and to continue to contaminate our air with mercury. Great countries understand that a dedication to public health is what drives a nation forward. We must protect the air our children breathe. Sen. Reid has been essential in protecting our clean-air heritage. Sen. Heller should join him in protecting Nevada’s families.

Yvonne M. Kaeder is a Las Vegas IT professional, mother of three and a board member of the Nevada Conservation League Education Fund.

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