United Methodists seek children's environmental protection
5/9/2003
WASHINGTON
(UMNS) - In a pre-Mother's Day letter, the Children's Environmental
Health Network has called on President George W. Bush to protect
children from environmental health hazards.
The nearly 70
organizations that signed the coalition's letter include the United
Methodist Board of Church and Society and the United Methodist
Appalachian Ministry Network.
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), a
United Methodist, declared her intention to reintroduce the Nationwide
Health Tracking Act. That legislation would "establish a nationwide
network to improve and integrate health and environmental data -
including nationwide data on childhood asthma, cancer and birth
defects," she said in a statement read at a press conference May 8.
John
Hill, a staff executive with the Board of Church and Society, spoke at
the press conference, asking the Bush administration to protect all
children from environmental threats.
"We believe each and every
child is a precious and priceless gift, created in the image of God and
entrusted to our care," he said of the communities of faith. "All too
often, our government's actions - or inactions - quite literally devalue
the lives of children."
John Wesley, founder of Methodism,
campaigned 250 years ago to end the practice of children working in coal
mines, Hill observed. Wesley fought for clean air and clean water, and
he urged his followers not to work in the arsenic and lead industries
long before science recognized the risk they posed.
Hill cited a
pilot project the board has developed in collaboration with the
Mississippi and Louisiana annual (regional) conferences to study,
educate and advocate about the effects of the environment on children's
health. The project found that, in Louisiana, 335,000 children live
within a 30-mile radius of dirty, coal-fired power plants. More than
17,000 of the children have asthma.
"Policies that 'discount'
children and consider premature deaths, developmental disorders and
epidemic rates of asthma as simply unavoidable 'costs' of our current
lifestyle are immoral," Hill declared.
He accused the Bush
administration of pursuing policies "that, under the guise of regulatory
relief and streamlining, would broaden exemptions and loopholes in the
Clean Air Act, resulting in more, not less, air pollution" and more, not
fewer, cases of asthma.
Clinton, in her statement, noted that a
Columbia University study found a childhood asthma rate of 26 percent
among children in Harlem. "How can children learn in school or enjoy
life if they are struggling simply to breathe?" she asked.
"I
also plan to introduce legislation that addresses lead exposure, asthma
and the other most significant issues in children's environmental
health," Clinton said. In addition, she pledged to fight to curb harmful
pollution from power plants and school buses.
In its letter, the
Children's Environmental Health Network and co-signers asked the
president for "policies that consistently put children's health before
narrow economic interests"; "research programs that consistently invest
in long-term, child-focused programs"; and "consistent application and
enforcement of laws and regulations affecting children's health."
The
complete letter may be found at
http://www.cehn.org/cehn/Bushcoalitionletter2.html, and the complete
text of John Hill's statement may be found at
http://www.umc-gbcs.org/news/viewnews.php?newsId=399.
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