Press Release: 9/17/2025
Watch: Pressley in Hearing: GOP Attacks on EPA Risking Lives in Boston and Beyond
“This is a matter of lives being cut short and futures stolen.”
WASHINGTON – In a House Oversight subcommittee hearing, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) discussed how Republicans’ attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and rollbacks of environmental regulations will increase asthma, heart disease, and preventable illness in frontline communities like Boston’s Chinatown, Mattapan, and Roxbury neighborhoods. The Congresswoman highlighted how Black, brown, and Asian American communities disproportionately shoulder the harm of environmental pollution, and urged Republicans to ensure polluters, not families, pay the price.
A full transcript of Congresswoman Pressley’s exchange with witnesses is below, and the full video is available here.
Transcript: Pressley in Hearing: GOP Attacks on EPA Risking Lives in Boston and Beyond
House Oversight Subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement
September 16, 2025
REP. PRESSLEY: Republicans are working to dismantle the very protections that keep our air and water safe – protections they dismiss as so-called burdens.
But when government makes it easier for corporations to pollute, the real burdens fall on the people.
Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record this September 2025 article from WBUR titled, “Fear and low morale at New England EPA office as it loses a quarter of its staff under Trump.”
CHAIR: Without objection.
REP. PRESSLEY: This reporting makes clear that the mass firings in the EPA have destabilized our workforce and left communities without critical safeguards, and also disrupted the lives and livelihoods of those who have been laid off.
In Boston’s Chinatown – which I am proud to represent in the Massachusetts 7th –families live at the intersection of two interstate highways. It is a vibrant neighborhood, rich in culture and history, but one that has been paying the price of pollution for generations.
Study after study confirms what my constituents already know: Chinatown routinely has the worst air quality in Massachusetts because of toxic air emissions.
Mr. Schaeffer, what are the public health consequences for frontline communities when environmental protections are weakened?
MR. SCHAEFFER: Increased risk of cancer, heart disease, asthma attacks, premature mortality from these pollutants. And just again, these issues have been studied and studied and studied. There are areas where there’s room for debate and there are other areas where the evidence is really obvious about the hazard.
REP. PRESSLEY: Thank you. Yes, less environmental protections means more children with asthma, more elders with heart disease, and more families with preventable illnesses and lives cut short.
Parents in Boston know what it’s like to watch their child wheeze on the way to school or to spend hours in an ER on a bad air quality day. Asthma alone causes 14 million missed school days a year nationwide – meaning our children are falling behind in class because of pollution in the air they breathe.
And these burdens aren’t equally shared.
Mr. Schaeffer, what does the evidence tell us about racial disparities in exposure to pollution?
MR. SCHAEFFER: I would say that especially if you look at income, you do see a disparity. The pollution disproportionately affects low-income communities, and that’s because they tend to be located near factories, near highway centers, near construction sites, ports, and of course, in many of those neighborhoods, you have a majority of African American or Latino or Asian, Asian American residents.
REP. PRESSLEY: That’s right. And Black children are twice as likely to develop asthma because communities of color in Boston and across the country are disproportionately forced to breathe dirtier air, drink less safe water, and be subject to risks they didn’t create.
In Mattapan and Roxbury – two predominantly Black and Brown neighborhoods in my district – children are seven times more likely — seven — to go to the emergency room for asthma attacks compared to children in more affluent neighborhoods just a couple miles away.
Now, Republicans want to strip away some of the only tools these communities have to hold polluters accountable when companies refuse to follow the law.
Mr. Schaeffer, how do the policies we’re discussing today work to ensure companies account for the costs of their pollution?
MR. SCHAEFFER: First of all, I want to sort of reiterate, we’re talking about after market defeat devices that are sold to strip out or disable emission controls in trucks. I mean, common sense ought to tell you that’s wrong. It’s wrong to do that. I don’t know how many pamphlets or notices you need to read before you understand you really shouldn’t do that.
If you do, EPA has found the nitrogen oxide emissions will be 310 times higher than they are from a diesel truck that meets the standards the particulates from diesel exhaust will be, I can’t remember, many times higher, at least in order of magnitude, same for hydrocarbons. So you’re really talking about controls of that pollution that meet the limits or no controls at all in a lot of these cases, and the impact is pretty devastating.
REP. PRESSLEY: I agree. The choice is simple: defend corporations who poison our air or protect the children who are struggling to breathe.
I urge my colleagues to make the right choice and ensure polluters, not families, pay the price for their pollution.
This is a matter of lives being cut short and futures stolen. There are up to 200,000 deaths every year from air pollution.
I yield back.