Foreign Emissions and Nonattainment Clarification for Economic Stability Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. DEXTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from New Jersey for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong and vehement opposition to these bills, specifically the FENCES Act, that gut the Clean Air Act's core public health protections.

Before the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970, pollution choked American cities. It blanketed entire communities in a toxic haze so thick that residents were reported to believe they were under chemical attack.

In Los Angeles, people had smog-burned eyes and seared lungs. In my hometown of Portland, an industrial hub, smokestacks filled the skies with black plumes. Children walked to school clutching handkerchiefs over their faces. Drivers crashed on the highway because they couldn't see more than a few feet ahead. Families were scared. They were sick, and they were desperate for change.

That is the reality my Republican colleagues are now trying to drag us back to. The National Ambient Air Quality Standards are one of the most important tools we have to protect health. They set limits on dangerous pollution and ensure communities know when the air they breathe is unsafe. These bills would undermine those standards, allowing States to sidestep them and leave the public in the dark about real health risks.

As a lung doctor, I know exactly what that means. It means more asthma attacks, more heart attacks, more strokes, more cancer diagnoses, and more children in the ER.

We have seen this play out time and time again, and today, I cannot help but wonder when are we going to learn our lesson.

In places like Cancer Alley, families wake up every day knowing the air they breathe is making them sick. Communities are living with higher rates of cancer, respiratory illness, and premature death--real people, real families bearing the cost of decisions made right here.

It is not just one place. Across the country, in communities living near the major sources of pollution, we see the same pattern. When standards are weakened and accountability disappears, people pay with their health.

This is not what the people of Oregon sent me here to do. They sent me here to fight for healthy communities, for clean air, for safe water, and a better future for our children.

I will not sit silently while this body rolls back lifesaving protections that have put polluters on watch. I urge my colleagues to reject these bills. Our children are watching. History is watching, and the air we breathe is on the line.

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