Advocacy Campaign
The Fight For Clean Air
Millions of Americans suffer from asthma. However, most people don't know how brutal it is to live with the disease. Environmental triggers, like ozone pollution, can exacerbate asthma.
The Clean Air Act gives us all the legal right to breathe clean, healthy air. We demand clean air now.
Across America, industrial plants are blanketing schools, playgrounds and homes in a fog of pollution—even though cost-effective controls exist now. Our bodies should not be the dumping ground for dirty industries. Join the fight.
Everyone has the right to breathe.
Clean air is a fundamental right. Yet, millions of Americans are denied that right every day in communities across the country as dirty industrial plants blanket schools, playgrounds and homes in layers of pollution—often in violation of the Clean Air Act.
The Technology to Clean Up Our Air is Available Now.
We know air pollution kills by causing cancer and a range of other health problems. Yet, for decades major polluters have managed—with substantial help from their friends in Congress—to avoid significantly reducing their air pollution, even though cost-effective controls are now readily available.
Fighting pollution from many sources.
Cars, trucks and smokestacks: Ozone, also known as smog, comes from a range of sources including tail pipes, power plants and industry, and pollutes cities across America. Smog causes asthma attacks, clogs our lungs and threatens our health, resulting in emergency room visits and missed school days.
Oil refineries: More than seven million Americans living near an oil refinery have an increased cancer risk from the release of more than 20,000 tons of toxic air pollutants like mercury, arsenic and lead each year.
Waste incinerators and boilers: An EPA loophole allows industrial waste like tires, plastics and chemicals to be burned with little to no controls in over 1.5 million boilers in the United States. When facilities burn these wastes, they send heavy metals and other cancer-causing pollutants into schoolyards, hospitals and homes.
Clean air means fewer hospital visits, sick days—and saved lives. We need leaders who will stand up to polluters and keep our air clean. It is our job to tell them why it’s so important.
Earthjustice has been fighting to force industrial polluters to follow laws that were created to protect our communities from unhealthy levels of air pollution.
Through our work in the courts, we’ve forced the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to update many outdated health standards that will reduce air pollution including boilers, oil refineries, and coal-fired power plants.
We’re defending our victories from being overturned by a pro-polluter Congress, and we’re continuing to fight in the courts to ensure that industries that have been poisoning local communities for decades can no longer pollute with impunity.
Spotlight
90 Million
Number of Americans who live within 30 miles of at least one oil refinery
