Yesterday, MomsRising brought some of our moms and kids to the public hearing about proposed standards for carbon pollution at the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC.  We were part of a huge coalition effort by public health, environmental and civil liberties organizations to express to the EPA the general public's broad support for clean air.

It was a beautiful day for advocacy, and we even got to meet the Lorax!

We shot our own video testimony outside the EPA before heading inside. You can see the individual testimonies here.

When we went in to testify, it was right before lunch. The panel had already been spent hours listening to testimony. They perked up when they saw our kids come into the room.

WHY WE TESTIFY

You have to feel a little sorry for officials charged to preside over public hearings. From early in the morning into the evening, they receive a steady stream of testifiers, making arguments for or against a proposed policy, all of which they’ve heard a bazillion times before. With every citizen allotted 5 minutes to speak, that’s 12 speakers an hour, close to 100 testimonies over the course of a full day! You can almost forgive these officials for not absorbing every word.

Still, if you are testifying, you do your hardest to catch their attention and make an impression, in the hope that when it’s all over, yours is one of the stories they will remember. That’s why you speak from the heart. That’s why you bring visuals.

And what’s more heart-felt than a mother’s testimony on behalf of her family? What’s more eye-catching than the children at her side or on her lap? These are the reasons why MomsRising works so hard to bring moms and kids to public hearings – to help make sure that the perspectives, concerns and priorities of families resonate in the policy-making process.

And what's more critical to the health of our kids and families than live-giving air? Already, more than 7 million children in this country have asthma, which accounts for some 200,000 pediatric hospitalizations a year. More than 14 millions school days are lost annually because of asthma. We just can't afford for our government to put the interests of polluters ahead of public health. We need clean air!

OUR TESTIMONIES

Before our testimonies, Elsa presented each of panel members with a copy of MomsRising’s collection of clean air stories that we received from our members across the country.

Elaine and Marianne did a great job representing the concerns of moms across the country and explaining why families want and need clean air. Please watch for yourself!