Today members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted in favor of HR 910, known (by me) as the Asthma Aggravation Act of 2011, because it will allow big corporations to dump unlimited amounts of carbon pollution from power plants and other industrial sources.
Health, consumer and small business groups are on record opposing HR 910.
By passing out of committee a bill that allows unlimited carbon pollution and passing the Asthma Aggravation Act, these House members have made themselves Asthma Aggravators. As leading public health groups and scientists have made clear, carbon pollution poses a wide range of public health threats from more powerful heat waves and extreme weather events to spreading infectious diseases and worsening air pollution problems. That last one ties carbon pollution to asthma, a respiratory disease suffered by 24 million Americans, including 7 million children. Air pollution worsens asthma.
Votes for HR 910 benefit the agenda of our biggest polluters like Koch Industries, which along with other polluters is sinking millions of dollars into efforts to block badly-needed updates to clean air safeguards.
So here’s a little run-down of the Asthma Aggravators, the number of people and children in and around their district whose health is made more vulnerable by their vote, and the amount big polluters have given them in recent years.
| Member of Congress | Party | State | Adults with asthma in and around the district |
Kids with asthma in and around the district |
Contributions From Polluters | |
| Michael | Rogers | R | MI | 21,586* | 5,739* | $ 482,000 |
| Mike | Ross | D | AR | 55,807 | 14,348 | $ 262,000 |
| Brian P. | Bilbray | R | CA | 258,743 | 70,082 | $ 424,000 |
| Mary | Bono Mack | R | CA | 181,226 | 54,909 | $ 268,700 |
| Cory | Gardner | R | CO | 80,921 | 21,016 | $ 29,500 |
| Cliff | Stearns | R | FL | 144,399 | 42,504 | $ 266,500 |
| John | Barrow | D | GA | 73,019 | 19,890 | $ 242,000 |
| J. Phillip | Gingrey | R | GA | 111,689 | 32,290 | $ 75,750 |
| Adam | Kinzinger | R | IL | 101,221 | 30,301 | $ 17,000 |
| John | Shimkus | R | IL | 85,384 | 21,829 | $ 889,695 |
| Mike | Pompeo | R | KS | 61,783 | 17,385 | $ 18,000 |
| Brett | Guthrie | R | KY | 138,582 | 32,807 | $ 60,000 |
| Ed | Whitfield | R | KY | 68,568 | 15,711 | $ 672,000 |
| Bill | Cassidy | R | LA | 65,337 | 18,571 | $ 88,500 |
| Steve J. | Scalise | R | LA | 98,879 | 26,630 | $ 168,000 |
| Fred | Upton | R | MI | 81,751 | 19,111 | $ 765,000 |
| Gregg | Harper | R | MS | 84,981 | 27,324 | $ 147,200 |
| Sue Wilkins | Myrick | R | NC | 103,645 | 32,072 | $ 333,200 |
| Lee | Terry | R | NE | 50,656 | 16,787 | $ 442,531 |
| Charles | Bass | R | NH | 120,358 | 25,108 | $ 288,000 |
| Leonard | Lance | R | NJ | 155,140 | 39,718 | $ 31,000 |
| Robert E. | Latta | R | OH | 107,627 | 25,659 | $ 42,000 |
| John A. | Sullivan | R | OK | 78,014 | 20,977 | $ 784,378 |
| Greg | Walden | R | OR | 69,094 | 16,628 | $ 443,000 |
| Timothy F. | Murphy | R | PA | 180,349 | 37,454 | $ 522,000 |
| Joseph R. | Pitts | R | PA | 129,555 | 31,972 | $ 196,000 |
| Marsha W. | Blackburn | R | TN | 196,452 | 52,213 | $ 238,143 |
| Joe | Barton | R | TX | 161,107 | 53,437 | $ 2,879,385 |
| Michael C. | Burgess | R | TX | 380,889 | 128,018 | $ 345,822 |
| Pete | Olson | R | TX | 403,046 | 136,558 | $ 280,250 |
| Jim | Matheson | D | UT | 162,582 | 54,700 | $ 453,000 |
| Morgan H. | Griffith | R | VA | 69,344 | 13,937 | $ 14,400 |
| Cathy | McMorris Rodgers | R | WA | 66,851 | 15,500 | $ 207,783 |
| David | McKinley | R | WV | 56,768 | 11,389 | $ 33,900 |
Sources: Asthma prevalence data based on American Lung Association published estimates by county. Estimates in this table do not correlate directly to the number of people in a district with asthma as some districts only overlay parts of counties. Therefore, the data is said to reflect the asthma prevalence “in and around” the district. * figure for Mike Rogers are just for Ingham County.
Campaign contributions information is from Open Secrets (http://www.OpenSecrets.org) and Federal Election Commission (http://www.fec.gov/disclosures.html) reports of contributions from oil and gas, electric utility, and coal and mining sectors. Top donors in these categories oppose key EPA safeguards.