Silicon Valley Powerhouse Moms Unite, Fight for Clean Air Act

“Mother love is a force of nature,” author and environmentalist Dominique Browning reminded a select group of powerhouse Silicon Valley moms yesterday at the launch of a new initiative called Moms Clean Air Force.

The group, some thirty in all, were gathered for lunch at the Stanford Park Hotel to hear about the challenges currently facing the Clean Air Act and to learn what they could do to ensure that their children have a future free of polluted air.

Moms Clean Air Force is the brainchild of Ms. Browning and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). Their goal is to sign a million moms (and dads) to their non-partisan movement.

“We want to transcend politics to get to a deeper core of values, the ones that protect our children’s future,” Ms. Browning said.

The 1970 Clean Air Act, signed into law by President Nixon, was intended to regulate emissions of hazardous air pollutants. In 1990, President Bush amended the act to ensure stricter compliance. However, since then industry and certain congressional leaders have worked to undermine the act. 

Elizabeth Thompson, President of the Environmental Defense Action Fund, called it “death by a thousand cuts” as riders have been added over the years to various congressional acts deflating the impact of the Clean Air Act. She cautioned that if congress continues down this path, there may be nothing left to protect our children from polluted air.

Vickie Patton, General Counsel of EDF, said “coal fired plants are the single largest source of mercury pollution in the country.” She went on to explain that mercury can harm fetuses and the developing brains of small children and impacts older children by placing them at increasing risk of asthma and other diseases.

“There are solutions,” she assured the group. Activated-carbon-injection technologies significantly reduce mercury emissions and have already been installed in over 60 power plants across the United States. 

Moms Clean Air Force would like to see deeper limits on coal powered plants and stricter compliance with laws regulating air-born pollutants across the country. 

It was for this reason that philanthropists Susan Ford Dorsey, President of the Sand Hill Foundation, and Ann Doerr, wife of venture capitalist John Doerr, hosted the event. They asked their influential friends to “reach out” to their own networks and “help make this movement grow in towns and cities across the country.”

Signe Ostby, EDF board member along with Ms. Dorsey and Ms. Doerr, was also in attendence.