The air quality in Utah is without a doubt the worst in the winter, which affects our daily lives more than we know. The poor air quality will negatively affect our health in the long term. People with asthma suffer from the effects of polluted air faster than others, since whenever the pollution in the air is high they have a hard time breathing.
Salt Lake City’s particle pollution in a 24 hour period is an average of 22 parts per million. This number is just two less than Los Angeles, California which has a particle pollution of 24 ppm.
The bill H.B.70 would create a task force to look at with Utah’s poor air quality. It is much like the already existing one that deals with water issues. The bill would create a 13 member committee, which would be made up of five Utah senators and eight representatives. The members of the task force will be appointed by the speaker and the majority president, and would review laws so that they can suggest changes that need to be made to improve the air quality in Utah.
The bill will be having its 3rd reading in the House of Representatives sometime next week, where the representatives are to vote whether to pass it on to the Senate. The task force will suggest changes or improvements that need to be done on existing laws to help clean our air. This does not mean that the laws will be changed by the task force, but that they will be giving suggestions and opinions and then the House will decide whether or not to apply the changes. Representative Patrice Arent, the main sponsor for this bill, is unsure of what laws will be changed or fixed.
“It is premature to determine what the outcome of the study might be,” Arent said.
The bill has many supporters, including Questar, Utah Moms for Clean Air, Breathe Utah, Wasatch Clean Air Coalition, and Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, Overstock.com, and the Utah Medical Association.
Besides these, there are also the citizens who wish to be able to breath clean air.
The big question is: what can be done about the poor air quality? Some people think that it is out of our hands, but others think that we can all help a little bit at a time.
Sol Maria Diaz-Vera, a sophomore at West High School, was asked what could be done to help clean our air, and she answered “Maybe if each person told themselves, ‘today I’m going to reduce pollution,' it’d be better.”
I completely agree with her. If we all help a little then there will be a huge difference.
Another major question on this matter is whether or not this is a moral or political issue. For some it may seem like it’s more of a moral issue, since it’s depending on whether or not we care about the planet that all of us live on, but for others it is a political matter. Tony Yapias is a Utah activist and a columnist at the weekly newspaper El Estandar. He sees this issue as being both a political and a moral matter:
Governor Gary R. Herbert recently said that he had a plan to get Utah’s air clean up called U-CAIR. The plan would consist of running campaigns to get the citizens of Utah involved in cleaning the air. This plan will not make it a requirement to help improve the air quality. In my opinion if it's not mandatory then people will not participate. There needs to be a better solution if our air quality is to improve.
Protecting our environment is a big deal, whether it’s our water, land, or air. We all need to start doing something to clean our air and not just leave it to the people with power. It will be best if the task force does strengthen some existing laws since it’s in all of our interest to have clean air, at whatever the cost.
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