World Asthma Day is May 4th
Event notice and advocacy opportunities below!
More than 26 million people in the United States have asthma, including over 5 million children. Asthma rates are another area where Black and brown people are disproportionately affected, in part because harmful air pollution from sources like car and truck exhaust is more heavily concentrated in these communities. Air pollution is one of the factors that can cause asthma or make it worse. According to Clean Water Action, nationally 7.7% of adults have asthma and 14% of people of color have asthma. Here in CT, 16.1% of Hispanic children and 11.2% of Black children have asthma, while 8% of white children have asthma. Hartford and New Haven ranked among the top 15 cities in the United States with the worst asthma rates in 2019.
Asthma can be a deadly disease, and there are significant racial disparities in outcomes. Black people die from asthma at higher rates than people of other races: in 2014, Black people were close to 3 times more likely to die of asthma-related causes than white people, according to national data.
There are various health and social interventions needed to bring down asthma rates and address racial disparities. There are also 2 legislative campaigns currently underway in Connecticut that would have an impact on reducing emissions and air pollution, which in turn would lead to positive impacts on asthma rates.
The ask: We invite you to reach out to your legislators this week to urge them to support these two bills:
SB 884: An Act Reducing Transportation-related Carbon Emissions
- Would implement the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI). TCI is a regional multi-state effort to reduce emissions from transportation and invest in cleaner transportation solutions. Implementing TCI would create jobs, improve air quality and public health, and contribute to the mitigation of climate change. (More details can be found below.)
- Transportation accounts for 38% of Connecticut’s climate change causing greenhouse gas emissions, and 69% of our nitrogen oxide emission, a leading driver of asthma rates.
- You can read and share this informative article that makes the connection between air pollution and asthma in CT, and how TCI would make a difference: “Spending, Equity, Health Outcomes at Heart of TCI Debate”
SB 931: An Act Concerning Emissions Standards For Medium And Heavy Duty Vehicles
- Would allow DEEP to analyze the energy, environmental, and air quality impacts of adopting CA’s regulations on medium and heavy-duty vehicles
- Authorizes DEEP to adopt the regulations if they are found to align with meeting CT’s climate goals or air quality standards
- Like SB 884, this legislation would have important benefits for public health, air quality, and reducing harmful climate change causing-emissions.
Note: The Connecticut General Assembly’s “Find Your Legislators” page will provide you with a list of your legislators. Click on the names of your state legislators to be taken to their personal pages that have their phone numbers and email addresses.
Event Notice:
You can also take part in this upcoming event marking World Asthma Day:
- May 4 at 7:00 PM–#LetUsBreathe Nationwide Virtual Town Hall: Workers and activists from across the US will share their stories in the fight for asthma justice and workers’ rights! RSVP here. You can also join on Facebook live during the event on the Clean Water Action Facebook page.
Further reading:
“Deadly air pollutant ‘disproportionately and systematically’ harms Americans of color, study finds” (Washington Post, April 28, 2021)
“Inequitable Exposure to Air Pollution from Vehicles in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic” (Union of Concerned Scientists, June 2019)
“’Poster Child’ Of The Climate Crisis: CA County Seeks Justice For Area Hit Hard By Air Pollution” (NPR, April 29, 2021)
Additional background on TCI:
How the program would work: TCI is a cap-and-invest program. The policy would set a cap on the level of transportation-sector emissions allowed, would require fossil fuel suppliers and distributors to purchase allowances for the emissions they produce, and then would invest that revenue into transitioning to a cleaner transportation sector. The cap would decline each year, with fewer allowances available for purchase.
An important component of the program is that at least 50% of the revenue collected from polluters would be invested in communities that are overburdened by pollution and underserved by our current transit system. Low-income communities and communities of color face disproportionate levels of air pollution and bear the disproportionate health consequences, and these communities must be prioritized in the process to address emissions.
In December 2020, Governor Lamont officially signed an MOU entering Connecticut into this agreement. Now, the CT legislature needs to pass legislation to enable DEEP to actually implement the program. There is a bill this session that would allow for the implementation: SB 884: An Act Reducing Transportation-related Carbon Emissions.
We need to educate legislators about the program, including its benefits, and urge them to support this legislation. There have been misconceptions about the program raised in some public discussions. Contrary to what some have argued, this is not a gas tax. Fossil fuel producers and suppliers will be the ones directly paying into this program, and while they may pass along some of that expense to consumers at the gas pump, the most robust studies have shown that the potential increase at the pump would amount to 5 cents/gallon in 2023. There is also a “cost-containment” mechanism that would “allow the administration to adjust the impact on consumers if they found that it had caused gas prices to rise by 9 cents per gallon.”
Cleaner air, reduced climate-destroying emissions, and cleaner transportation options are things that benefit all of us. The Transportation and Climate Initiative is an important policy to achieve these goals by requiring that polluting industries to pay for the pollution they emit, and then by reinvesting that revenue into communities to create a greener transportation system.
