Press Releases

Amendment Improves One-Sided Study of Clean Air Regulations

Washington, DC – Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment written by Congresswoman Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) that would require regulators to consider the public health of Americans and the impacts on low-income communities when analyzing clean air regulations.

The underlying bill, the TRAIN Act, would create an 11-member interagency committee to examine the cumulative effects of current and proposed Environmental Protection Agency regulations on U.S. energy and manufacturing industries and energy prices.  The bill would require the committee to consider a multitude of factors in their analysis that, as originally written, overwhelmingly focused on the costs to industry, while ignoring the benefits to public health, the environment, and the communities that unevenly share the burdens of air pollution.

Congresswoman Moore said, “We’ve seen the tremendous public health benefits associated with EPA regulations that reduce the hazardous air pollutions in our air, and we know that often low-income communities are at disproportionately high risks from pollution.  To not ignore the health benefits enjoyed by all Americans, and the assistance that low-income communities receive from cleaner air, would be dishonest to a true cost-benefit analysis.” 

Moore’s amendment requires the interagency committee to study the public health and impact on low-income communities along with other factors designed to show the burden of EPA regulations on the energy business sector.

Moore continued, “I had my first asthma attack shoveling coal into a furnace at a very young age.  As an individual who grew up with asthma in a low-income community, I know the importance of environmental justice and why it is essential that we include it in these debates."

Moore’s amendment to the TRAIN Act passed by a recorded vote of 337-76.  The underlying bill passed the House by a vote of 249-169.