WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Representatives David Schweikert, Tony Cárdenas, and Pete Aguilar re-introduced the Crowd Sourcing of Environmental Data Act of 2019, a bi-partisan bill to incorporate mobile monitoring devices to increase the size, scope, and density of data collected for a cleaner environment. Congressman Schweikert and Cárdenas released the following statements after the bill was re-introduced.

“I am proud to see this legislation be re-introduced. This legislation would put the tracking of air quality into our community members’ hands, and would help simplify the process for monitoring the air we breathe. This could create a faster, healthier, and fairer process to reduce bureaucratic red tape and promote safer air quality.” said Congressman David Schweikert (AZ-06)

“Coming from the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, I remember the days where the smog was so thick that we had to stay inside,” Congressman Tony Cárdenas (D-CA) said. “We’ve come a long way since then, but still have a lot of work to do to ensure we have clean air for our families.  I am proud to work with my colleagues to find innovative ways to monitor the air we breathe to ensure our safety today and tomorrow.”

Background:

The Crowd Sourcing of Environmental Data Act of 2019 would provide a city, county or state with optionality, not a mandate for air quality monitoring. Under this legislation, states would annually produce the information gathered from their own crowdsourced environmental data for submission to the state’s EPA for technical review. Upon review, and if the data is found to be as good or better than the current data collected by the EPA, it is then submitted to the federal EPA Administrator for final verification. Upon successful review, the state is granted a year of authority to monitor and act upon its own data faster and more effectively. All the while, the current EPA monitoring stations are running in the background to ensure that a failure in the state’s monitoring would not result in a lack of environmental data collection.

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