WASHINGTON — In response to today’s release of the U.S. Environmental ProtectionAgency final Clean Power Plan rule, Dr. Hemant Sindhu—president of the Committee of Residents and Interns, an SEIU union of physicians—issued the following statement:

“Children with asthma are not interested in partisan political squabbling about climate change. They just want to breathe clean air. For doctors and our patients, that’s what this is about.

“More heat-related illnesses, more widespread insect and waterborne diseases, longer allergy seasons—we are at greater risk from these public health problems every single day that we do not act to reduce carbon emissions.

“These new standards will mean at least 140,000 fewer asthma attacks in children, nearly half a million fewer sick days from school or work, and thousands fewer deaths over the next 15 years. They will make our communities stronger and safer because they will be cleaner, less vulnerable to severe weather, and less dependent on unsustainable sources of energy.

“This is a public health issue, and it is one where we know how to make the progress that will save lives and improve quality of life. It is also an issue exacerbated by decades of poor housing, forgotten neighborhoods and racial disparities in our health system. Children are the most likely to be affected by poor air quality and the diseases that come with it. Climate justice must accompany economic justice.

“As doctors in some of the most underserved and struggling communities in the United States, we work in the places most acutely and disproportionately plagued by climate change. The Committee of Interns and Residents stands with our fellow medical professionals, who know clean power is a public health issue, and with fellow SEIU members and all working families whose health—and path to a better life—depend on clean air.”

###