Climate Progress: All Americans can celebrate the Environmental Protection Agency’s commitment to ensure everyone can breathe clean air. But this commitment particularly benefits communities of color. Currently, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans are especially vulnerable to air pollution’s health effects. Within the last year, however, the EPA instituted new mercury and air toxics standards and restrictions on cross-state air pollution. Last week the EPA also proposed carbon emissions limits on coal plants—a historic first step to slow the growth of the major pollutant responsible for global climate change. The EPA’s new policies could improve racial health disparities by shielding millions of Americans of color from further exposure to pollutants.

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