Barack Obama Quotes

We need to accept the seemingly obvious fact that a toxic environment can make people sick and that no amount of medical intervention can protect us. The health care community must become a powerful political lobby for environmental policy and legislation.

One of the first laws against air pollution came in 1300 when King Edward I decreed the death penalty for burning of coal. At least one execution for that offense is recorded. But economics triumphed over health considerations, and air pollution became an appalling problem in England.

The best way to reduce emissions and pollution is not through partisan political theater but through developing consensus on areas that will bring about effectual change.

In Washington, the air quality today was described as 'red.'...You know what 'red' is? It's bad for everyone. Not just old people, sick people and babies. When it's just bad for old people, sick people and babies, that's called a Republican budget.

Other ways of looking at the environmental or climate change stuff is to frame it in the context that it is simultaneously a public health issue. One out of eight premature deaths worldwide happens because of air pollution. The worst power plant in America kills 278 people a year and causes 445 heart attacks. So, when we improve air quality we improve our lives, and at the same time we improve the climate as well. We must see climate policy from this perspective and not as an abstract threat that may threaten our survival in 100 years.

I strongly support the Bush Administration's clean diesel rules, which will reduce air pollution from diesel engines by more than 90 percent, and reduce the sulfur content of diesel fuel by more than 95 percent.

When elected officials abandon our environment and ruin our natural resources, public health is endangered. I know the importance of providing a clean environment for our children; I have attended more than one funeral for a child who has died from an asthma attack.

To deal with local pollution, China has put on the agenda the capping of coal, which has long been a sensitive issue.

The health effects of air pollution imperil human lives. This fact is well-documented.

We've got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?

Despite Arizona's remarkable growth in recent years, we have met the current federal health standards for ozone pollution and the Environmental Protection Agency recently approved our dust control plan.

Clean air is a basic right. The responsibility to ensure that falls to Congress and the president.

The Chinese have figured out that they have a giant environmental problem. Folks in Beijing, some days, literally can't breathe. Over a million Chinese die prematurely every year because of air pollution.

These are the same people who believe, in some cases, the federal government should not play any role in providing health care to our people or protecting the environment.

I think you could offer seven or eight different possible ends for energy policy. Climate change is one of them. Dealing with criteria pollutants is one of those related to that.

There are some things that we value as a public good that the markets can't deliver, like clean air.

All Americans have benefited from the dedicated service of Representative Henry Waxman. In every battle and in every moment that mattered most, Rep. Waxman stood up for the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the wild places we cherish.

There is no doubt that environmentally related diseases will continue to pose problems in the future.

Moreover, environmental health at the local level has become narrowly focused, very much defined around regulations and the attendant regulatory debates.

The infrastructure for linking environmental health and public health is not working as well as it should.

Ozone Man

If you’re a Chinese mayor and have to choose between growing jobs and cutting pollution, you will invariably choose jobs: Coughing workers are much less politically dangerous than unemployed workers.

Pure air, pure water, the inspection of unhealthy habitations, the adulteration of food, these and many kindred matters may be legitimately dealt with by the Legislature;

Government Enviornmental poisitions are tradeoffs. In that process, Democrats tend to worry more about the harm done to the enviornment and the health of the people; Republicans tend to worry more about harm to business and the economy.

Too many members of Congress seem willing to give corporate polluters, many of whom happen to be major political donors, a free pass to poison the air.