WHEREAS, The Clean Air Act is one of the United States' most successful pieces of public health and environmental legislation, and one of the most essential; and

WHEREAS, According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, implementation of the Clean Air Act has reduced airborne lead by 98% and carbon monoxide by 24% since it became law in 1970; and

WHEREAS, The Clean Air Act still has much work left to do, as 70,000 Americans die prematurely each year due to exposure to air pollution; and

WHEREAS, 62 million people continue to live in counties that fail to meet the Clean Air Act's air quality standards, and 161 million in areas that fail to meet the American Lung Association's recommended standards; and

WHEREAS, Rhode Island is in non-attainment of the Clean Air Act standards, due mainly to increased automobile use and ozone blowing in from other states; and

WHEREAS, Environmental compliance is the way to a sustainable, healthy economy; and

WHEREAS, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's budget is threatened in a way that would make enforcement difficult or impossible, and anti-environmental riders to budget bills threaten to dismantle these very laws without due legislative process; now, therefore be it

RESOLVED, That this House of Representatives of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations hereby respectfully requests that the Congress and the President of the United States retain the protections of the Clean Air Act, to ensure the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is properly funded, and to strike all anti-environmental budget riders; and be it further

RESOLVED, That the Secretary of State be and he hereby is authorized and directed to transmit duly certified copies of this resolution to the Rhode Island delegation in the United States Congress and to the honorable President of the United States.