Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Letter to the editor:

Fight for clean air in Nevada

Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency hosted its only public hearing on its plan to replace the Clean Power Plan with a dirty power scam. I testified at the hearing in Chicago. On behalf of the Latino neighborhoods I grew up in and still work in, I asked the EPA to reconsider the lifesaving protections of the Clean Power Plan, which set the first federal limits on carbon pollution from power plants.

Although Las Vegas doesn’t have any coal plants within city lines, our residents are deeply affected by air pollution: According to the American Lung Association, Las Vegas is the 12th-most polluted city in the nation.

More than 42,000 children and 175,000 adults suffer from asthma in Nevada, and Latinos suffer from asthma at higher rates than their white peers. Repealing and replacing the Clean Power Plan would be a direct attack on Latino communities who already disproportionately suffer the effects of pollution.

If the federal government won’t act to protect our communities, then the states have to step in. At Chispa Nevada, we’re calling on state and local officials to replace dirty diesel school buses with zero-emission, electric buses.

Visit clean4kids.org to learn more about our work.

The writer is senior organizer for the League of Conservation Voters Chispa Nevada.