Alicia de Carmen Caballero supports 48 and rejects 561-A

Hi there, my name is Alicia de Carmen Caballero and I participate in the program.

I support Intro 48.

Translating the portal would help people like my mom, whose first language is not English, and would expand protection of our air quality to communities that are not being sufficiently covered and protected.

Your ability to protect your community should never depend on the language that you speak.

However, it is shameful that just as we are opening up this program to immigrant communities, Intro 561A would effectively shut it down through the back door.

It would do that in two ways.

The first is the 60-day requirement would force DEP to throw out violations that it can't process in 60 days.

It's currently taking around 12 months to process those violations.

This means that a year's worth of pollution violations would be tossed in the bin, and in effect, no new violations would ever be able to be processed in the future because DEP just currently isn't staffed to meet that kind of timeline.

Polluters would get a free pass, and we would lose our ability to protect our air quality going forward.

Pollution doesn't become less harmful just because...

because the violation sat in somebody's inbox for too long.

Second thing is diesel regeneration exemption would allow idling when a truck is burning off soot.

But there is no way for me or the DEP reviewer to confirm whether that truck was actually doing that.

So the result is that any time an idling truck gets a violation, they can just say, I was doing diesel regeneration.

There'd be no way to disprove it.

So it's a get-out-of-jail-free card.

So again, polluters would get a pass, and we would lose this important mechanism to enforce our clean air laws.

So these are backdoor ways of dismantling enforcement.

One lets the clock excuse pollution.

The other creates a loophole that residents cannot challenge.

Both of my parents were truck drivers, long-haul truck drivers.

They also deserve clean air.

Everybody in this room does, whether you're an environmentalist or from the industry.

So my ask is to...

Please pass Intro 48 and reject Intro 561A.

Wholly, I don't think it's resurrectable.

I think the one thing that needs to change is better staffing for the DEP to get through these violations more quickly.

And please don't invite immigrant communities into this program, only to strip it of its power to protect them.

Thank you.