STATEMENT ON THE PRESIDENT'S FAILURE TO UPDATE OZONE STANDARDS

The President is in a difficult position: zero net job growth in August, a difficult election in fourteen months.

But millions of children have it much worse. Millions of kids live in areas where the air makes them sick, where a deep breath could trigger a terrifying asthma attack. Nine million children have asthma, according to the National Institutes of Health, including one in six African-American children. And 186 million people breathe unhealthy air today because our ozone standard is too weak.

These children can't clean the air themselves. They can't demand that polluters cut back on particulate emissions or mercury or ozone. All they can do is take little breaths and hope.

They rely on us to do the heavy lifting. Though they don't know it, they rely on the President and the EPA.

Green For All is deeply committed to getting Americans back to work. We oppose the government setting standards that do nothing but make it harder to give people jobs. But we stand strongly behind making our environment cleaner and our children healthier. We stand firmly with other environmental organizations, with the Lung Association and with the EPA itself in saying: the time to reduce the amount of ozone in the air over our cities is now. Not in 2013. Now.

Instead, our children are being asked to wait.

Why?