Transportation fuels are responsible for nearly half of our global warming pollution in Washington. Diesel and gasoline are also the largest sources of air pollution, which health professionals link directly to asthma, lung cancer, and other respiratory diseases. We also know that lower income communities and communities of color disproportionately suffer from pollution, since they are often closer to major transportation corridors. For example, diesel pollution is one reason that Duwamish Valley residents have a life expectancy thirteen years shorter than those in other parts of King County.
We can clean up our act right now. HB 1110 has passed the House and is making its way through the Senate. Your voice is crucial.
Can you please email your senator and tell them to support the Clean Fuel Standard?
Currently drivers have few choices beyond traditional gasoline and diesel, since the oil companies have a monopoly on our options. Washingtonians deserve cleaner fuels that improve public health, reduce climate pollution, and support local economic development in rural communities.
A Clean Fuel Standard will:
- Require refineries and fuel importers to achieve a 10% carbon intensity reduction by 2028; and a 20% carbon intensity reduction by 2035;
- Cut more than five million tons of carbon by 2035;
- Create up to 15,000 local jobs in the electrification industry and in the production of clean fuels from the agricultural, dairy, waste and forestry sectors.
Washington is the only West Coast state that still lacks a Clean Fuel Standard. It’s time for us to align ourselves with neighbors California, Oregon and British Columbia.