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Statement Of Evan Thomas Paul
Environmental Protection Agency
Aging Initiative Public Listening Session
Los Angeles, California
April 29, 2003
I think I may be one of the youngest speakers here today. My name is
Evan Paul. I’m the Clean Air Campaign Director for Environment
California. We are a statewide advocacy organization affiliated with
the California Public Interest Research Group. I am primarily speaking
today to the discussion point of gaps, gaps in environmental health
research and how we can fill those gaps and assure that we are adequately
protecting our environmental health, especially for seniors -- the gaps
that the environmental advocacy community has been seeing are in the
policy proposals being put forward and encouraged by the current administration
and Governor Whitman. We are very excited now that this listening tour
has come about because it seems to be the first time there has been
a concerted effort to listen to the public health, environmental and
seniors communities. Up until now, all the listening has really been
done to industries and has been done to the actual polluters and causes
of our environmental health problems. Earlier, it was mentioned that
the air in Los Angeles basin and in this area of California has gotten
much cleaner over years. Yes, that is totally true, and we are very
encouraged by that. But the reason why is due to the public health protections
we have put in place. A large part of that is the current Clean Air
Act. But the current administration is now trying to weaken our existing
environmental laws that are effective that are working. The Bush administration
is proposing a Clear Skies initiative, which has all sorts of strong
rhetoric surrounding it that indicates somehow it will improve human
health. But according to EPA’s own straw report, looking at the
Clean Air Act, the Clear Skies proposal will allow more than twice as
much sulfur dioxide for nearly a decade longer compared to faithful
enforcement of the current Clean Air Act. The Bush administration’s
air pollution plan allows more than one and a half times as much nitrous
oxide into our air as the current Clean Air Act. The Bush administration’s
plan allows five times as much mercury emissions for a decade longer
than faithful enforcement of the current Clean Air Act. This is not
a recipe for improving environmental health. The priority here–by
the administration–is really to allow polluters to breathe easier,
not to allow seniors to breathe easier. In California, we are doing
everything we can to stem this tide. Lots of legislation at the state
level, regulatory enforcement mechanisms that we are trying to put in
place to stem this tide of anti-environmental rollbacks happen at the
federal level. However, we can only do so much. One example of this
is the Clean Car Vehicle Program that the state of California has. The
Bush administration has joined in a lawsuit with the auto industry to
eliminate it. That is not a recipe for protecting public health and
the environment. For other states, because of the ways federal environmental
laws are structured, California has a unique role to set the high water
mark for environmental protection. We are doing every thing that we
can. I really feel sorry for other states that are unable to do this.
Other states that are now facing the environmental, public health assault
happening at the federal level have no recourse. They do not have the
jurisdictions that put in place strong clean air protections since the
leadership to try exists here in California. Even within the state,
many of the stronger measures that we want to put into place are only
governed by the federal government. There is only so much we can do.
A lot of the rhetoric surrounding this by the administration, by Governor
Whitman, is that encouraging economic growth will somehow lead to environmental
progress in the future. But what is forgotten is that economic growth
is a means toward an end, and the end is improving the quality of our
life. If we are sacrificing our quality of life, then we are undermining
the very goal of economic progress. My final point is that to protect
seniors’ environmental health and other at-risk communities –
we do need special protections, special standards for seniors but in
the exact opposite direction of those as called for by the “senior
death discount.” We need stronger protections put in place for
seniors, not weakening the standards at which their lives are valued.
Thank you.