Supporting Clean Cars is a Moral Imperative

By GEORGE DEMPSIE

As people of faith, we vote our values, and our values include caring for creation and the most vulnerable among us. It is our poor, our young and our afflicted brothers and sisters that suffer most from air pollution and environmental degradation. This is why we are calling on our leaders to fight for life-saving federal clean car standards that reduce the impacts of pollution that harm our health and our planet.

In Pennsylvania, transportation is a major source of dangerous smog and climate-warming emissions. In Blair County alone, there are more than 12,500 cases of pediatric and adult asthma as well as more than 7,500 cases of the progressive lung disease, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease or COPD. (American Lung Association State of the Air Report, 2018)

The strong national clean car standards that are working right now to cut pollution from our cars and trucks and improve the health of these individuals are under attack.

At the request of corporate industry lobbying groups, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Association of Global Automakers, the government will soon announce a rollback of these important, common sense standards. Instead of listening to its citizens, the very agencies tasked with protecting our environment, our health and our safety are bowing to these groups who’s job it is to increase profits for General Motors, Ford, Fiat Chrysler, Toyota, Kia and other major domestic and international automakers - at the expense of American families’ health and bank accounts.

By asking for this roll back the auto industry will cost the U.S. 60,000 jobs, reduce gross domestic product by $8 billion, increase consumer spending on gasoline by about $20 billion, boost oil use by an additional half million barrels a day (www.autonews.com 12/10/18), worsening the health impacts of air pollutants and carcinogenic toxic emissions caused by burning fuel and release ever more climate warming emissions.

As people of faith, and on behalf of the 24 million Americans, including six million children who suffer from asthma, we cannot stand aside as the benefits of cleaner cars are threatened. We must demand that our leaders fight for them.

Under the current standards, automakers have sold the cleanest, most advanced and fuel-efficient cars we’ve ever known and in record numbers. And, these improvements are happening across all vehicle types, whether you drive car, truck or SUV. 

And the standards can help financially hard-hit American families that can expect to save $8,000 in fuel costs for a new vehicle if they stay put through 2025. For Pennsylvanians, the standards have already saved the state $1.2 billion to date. And the economic growth we can expect as a result of the standards would bring 26,400 new jobs to the state by 2030. (www.ucsusa.org/state-mpg-benefits)

If our state leaders want to protect the health of our community and improve lives, they must stand with people of faith and support strong fuel economy and emissions standards and help us put pressure on automakers to do the right thing.

Our moral obligation to call on political and industry leaders to support clean cars stems from the desire to prevent premature deaths and relieve asthma and other respiratory and cardiac illnesses caused or exacerbated by air pollution and improve economic conditions that improve lives. 

If you care about the quality of the air that you and your loved ones breathe here in Blair County, share your concerns with our elected officials. And speak out when you visit your local car dealerships. Tell them you are unhappy with their lobbying efforts to weaken clean car standards. 

We all have a voice and we should all feel a moral duty to keep standards in place that improve the lives of our neighbors, especially the most vulnerable among us.

George Dempsie serves on the Board of Directors of Pennsylvania Interfaith Power & Light.