Category: advocacy

Going to the MATS for Air Quality in Pennsylvania (and Look For Me in the Morning Call Next Week)

~ Chris Cocca ~ 7 Comments

Jon Geeting has a cost/benefit quote from Paul Krugman about the new Mercury and Air Toxins Standards (MATS) announced by EPA this week, and some thoughts about the GenOn issue here in our backyard.

As I commented on Jon’s blog:

Jon, thanks for posting on this.  In my capacity as Outreach Director for the Air Quality Partnership of Lehigh Valley – Berks, I have [a] piece running on related issues in the forthcoming Tuesday, Dec 27 edition of The Morning Call.

We’re applauding the president for the new MATS (Mercury and Toxins Standard), but we’re still looking for leadership on the new Ozone standards EPA proposed, based on the best available science, this past year.  In September, the President disappointed everyone by failing to enact these standards, leaving 2008 Bush guidelines in place that have been widely derided by the scientific community and advocacy groups.

Some of these groups have been pushing hard for GenOn to be forced to clean up sooner than the three year window that now seems to be codified.  My personal preference would be for a quicker total clean up.   Clean air is a fundamental legal right of all residents of the Commonwealth (Section 27 of the PA Constitution).  Krugman is right about the health benefits and cost/benefit of MATS, even as President Obama was wrong about the negative economic impact of better Ozone standards.  It makes one wonder why MATS got greenlit and responsible Ozone standards got punted to a presumptive second Obama term.

As you’ll see in Tuesday’s piece, “political realities” aren’t a good answer on the Ozone failure.  Check out what the President’s frenemies at the American Lung Association had to say about it.  They’re very pleased with the President this week about MATS, and they should be.   But my primary charge as a representative of the Air Quality Partnership is to advocate for and educate about ways we can reduce smog-causing ozone pollution and the production of deadly soot (often called particulate matter).   Mr. Obama, why, exactly, were the crucial updates to the Bush standards (so widely scorned in the progressive community) abandoned without a fight?  Why did you cede the cost/benefit narrative on better ozone protection when the science (and economics) were clearly in the favor of protecting public health?

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Who’s Right on Smog and Clean Air Standards? Obama or His EPA?

~ Chris Cocca ~ 3 Comments

In September, President Obama announced that his administration would not adopt the new ozone standard recommended by EPA after a two-year review of the 2008 Bush administration standard.

EPA head Lisa Jackson had been pushing hard for the updated standard to replace the 2008 model, which the American Lung Association says “failed to protect public health, failed to follow the scientific community’s recommendations, and was legally indefensible.”

Ground-level ozone is a primary component in the creation of smog.  As we note on the Air Quality facts page at AirQualityAction.org, people with lung disease, children, older adults, and people who are active can be affected when ozone levels are unhealthy. Numerous scientific studies have linked ground-level ozone exposure to a variety of problems, including:

  • Airway irritation, coughing, and pain when taking a deep breath
  • Wheezing and breathing difficulties during exercise or outdoor activities
  • Inflammation, which is much like a sunburn on the skin
  • Aggravation of asthma and increased susceptibility to respiratory illnesses like pneumonia and bronchitis
  • Permanent lung damage with repeated exposures.

Healthy people also experience difficulty in breathing when exposed to ozone pollution. Because ozone pollution usually forms in hot weather, anyone who spends time outdoors in the summer may be affected.

As the ALA notes, “By choosing to ignore the recommendations of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), the President is failing to follow the nation’s landmark air pollution law, the Clean Air Act, and therefore failing to protect public health, particularly those most at risk including children, older people, and people who suffer from chronic lung diseases. For these people, breathing smog-polluted air can lead to coughing and wheezing, restricted airways, hospitalization and even death. Even healthy young adults and people who exercise or work outdoors can suffer from high levels of ozone pollution.”

All Americans, especially those already most at-risk from smog pollution, deserve the kind of protection ALA and EPA have called for. The President’s position on this issue is predicated by the false notion that tougher standards will adversely impact job creation. Remind the President that the creation of greener, cleaner jobs was at one time a top priority for his administration, and that his decision to punt on better smog standards is misguided and puts millions of Americans at needless risk.

Cities and Prices (and Hockey), continued.

~ Chris Cocca ~ 1 Comment

Friend of the blog Jon Geeting shared my Free Market post from yesterday with some good insights and responses at his blog today.  This is the kind of online discourse I really enjoy: people of good-will engaging each other respectfully across platforms. I encourage you to take part in the conversation at Jon’s blog, but I do want to share a small excerpt from my own response:

It’s fine by me that Rite Aid provides cheaper goods and medicines to Center City residents, and God bless them for it. But on the ground in Allentown, based on conversations I had downtown over the weekend, some civic leaders really are worried that it’s going to be hard to lure and place that kind of store in the near future. They’re not worried the same way about replacing the dollar store (which is also needed). Another question: why isn’t Rite Aid simply moving across the street or up or down a block? Why isn’t the efficiency of the market making it compelling for Rite Aid to stay in the city? And if Rite Aid won’t stay, why should we be confident that Walgreens will come? If the market worked exactly the way we wanted, there’d be no such thing as food deserts, or, in this case, prescription deserts, right?

For me, the immediate issue is also framed by the experiences some folks had at the three “arena open houses” last week.  For months, people have been complaining about the lack of transparency that seems to be guiding the hockey arena project.  Last week, open houses were held in which various stations were set up and the public could talk with city officials, developers, and the owners of the former Philadelphia Phantoms.  One of the problems with this format, well-intended as it might have been, was that there was no chance for real public discussion.  If I’m being cynical, I might suggest a sort of divide and conquer strategy at work.  In any case, the Rite Aid concern came to me from downtown religious and civic leaders following these open houses, and they are worried.  So am I.  I’m not at a point where I feel confident that the market, as such, won’t create a healthcare desert in Center City.

Thank you, Jon, for picking up this discussion!

At Christmas, a Tale of Two School Districts

~ Chris Cocca ~ 2 Comments
Roosevelt Community School

A few months ago, I attended my first Community Partner meeting at Roosevelt Community School here in Allentown.  For those of you not familiar with the Community School model or how in works in this region, visit this page at the United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley.

Because of state budget cuts in education, elementary schools in the Allentown School District (a district and tax base not nearly as well-off as the Parkland School District that borders it) don’t have year-round gym, music, or art programs.  Instead, they get nine weeks of each.  Nine weeks of art.  Nine weeks of music. Nine weeks of gym in a district where over 40 percent of elementary students are either overweight or obese. Keep that in mind.

At Roosevelt,  Allentown Symphony Hall is a civic partner providing free music education five days a week via the El Sistema program for the length of the school year.  While I waited in the hall for my first meeting to start, I heard children talking to each other candidly and without prompting about how excited they were to be able to start El Sistema.  At another ASD elementary school, fliers for after-school fitness clubs paper the walls.  Mentoring programs, art programs, financial planning programs…these are all being organized and run by teachers, parents, volunteers, and, in the case of Roosevelt, a Community Director.

At Roosevelt, supplemental education doesn’t stop with children.  There are classes for parents, too, classes on parenting, financial basics, and English as a second language.  This philosophy is at least two-fold as far as I can tell:  parents with more resources and access help foster a better environment for success at home, and schools that are open to the community become places where parents, despite real or supposed cultural barriers, feel welcome.  That’s essential.

I’m sharing all of this for a few reasons that are related.

  • It’s extremely important.  As our city schools face continued challenges locally and nationally, and as budgets are cut because of the ongoing financial crisis or political maneuvering, I do believe these kinds of models will be an important way forward.
  • As Director of Mission at First Presbyterian in Allentown, I work with volunteers at Roosevelt.  100 percent of Roosevelt students are on free or assisted lunch.  Many don’t have enough socks, proper shoes, or warm winter clothes.  If you want to help with that, regardless of where you live, get in touch with me.
  • A few days ago, a post went up on the Valley610 blog telling people to add the Parkland Educational Foundation to your holiday gift-giving list. Jon Geeting jumped on this with a rather provocative headline.  By and large, Parkland has money.  By and large, gifts to the PEF will serve to maintain and further enhance the district’s profile as top in the region, and will help Parkland students maintain and enhance their already jack-pot experience.  That’s fine.
  • I owe a lot to the education I received in the 80s and 90s as a student in the Parkland School District.  We had a lot of opportunity, and kids there now have even more.  We had a ton of resources, and I can’t even imagine the kinds of resources that abound in each of the district’s schools at all levels in 2011.  In high school, I was Debate Team president and the President of the Class of ’98, and I understand even more now how lucky I was to be where I was and to have had parents, friends, teachers, and administrators who all impacted my life in profound ways.  Parkland has a great tradition, and I hope it continues.
  • But….

Kids in the ASD don’t have socks.  They don’t have winter coats.  They don’t have year-round gym or art or music.  Many can’t afford school lunch.  A few miles away sit schools bustling with opportunity in communities with money.

If you have a few expendable dollars this Christmas, give it to Community Schools like Roosevelt in the Allentown School District.  I like the intention, in some ways, behind the Parkland Educational Foundation’s idea of giving in honor of your favor teacher and so on.  But seriously, why not donate to the ASD in your favorite Parkland teacher’s name?  That’s what I’ll be doing.

Chuck Palahniuk and the Second Sunday of Advent

~ Chris Cocca ~ 2 Comments

If your first thought is that the title of this post would be a great name for a band across multiple genres, I agree.  But the truth is, in this case, even cooler than the fiction.

This is the Gathering Thought posted at the bottom of the cover of these week’s bulletin at First Presbyterian Church of Allentown:

“Are these things really better than the things I already have?  Or am I just trained to be dissatisfied with what I have now?”  – Chuck Palahniuk

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Chuck quoted so prominently in a church setting.  For those of you who know of my fondness for some of Chuck’s work, I should also state that I had nothing to do with this bit of timely subversion.  Fits very nicely with the liturgy for the Second Sunday of Advent, and for the themes of the Advent Conspiracy at First Pres.