Dear Friends:

          Over the past month, the Republican-led House of Representatives has pushed three bills that are an unprecedented and dangerous attack on some of our most critical clean-air regulations that prevent polluters from poisoning the air we breathe. I proudly opposed these misguided attempts to sacrifice the quality of our air in order to satisfy the anti-environment special interests.

 

 

          The Majority attempted to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating toxic emissions by our country’s largest sources of hazardous air pollutants. If these bills became law, they would be both dangerous and fiscally irresponsible. According to the EPA, for each year these regulations are delayed, there will up to 60,100 more premature deaths; 31,600 more heart attacks; 198,000 asthma attacks; 418,200 hospital and emergency room visits; and 3.1 million days of work or school missed due to illness. The financial costs of complying with these regulations are far outweighed by the benefits to our economy. For every $1 spent to make cement kilns and industrial boilers compliant with these air pollution standards, the resulting lower health-care costs and higher worker productivity would yield $17 to $43 in health benefits. New investments in pollution-control equipment used to meet the EPA’s emissions regulations for power plants would create nearly 1.5 million jobs over five years.

 

          You can check out the section of my website that I’ve launched to help keep you informed about my fight against this radical anti-environment agenda. Please be assured that I will keep fighting to preserve the mission to improve the quality of the air we breathe.           

          Sincerely,

 

          Gary L. Ackerman