From Dr. Gregory K. Moss, senior pastor at St. Paul Baptist Church in Charlotte:

As a person of faith, I have found my calling ministering within our communities and aiding people less fortunate among us. Given our city's perennial spot on the list of cities with poor urban air quality, it is hardly surprising that my work brings me into direct contact with people suffering from asthma, bronchitis and other pollution-aggravated illnesses. It is, therefore, hard for me to believe that any elected leader entrusted with the public's welfare would knowingly make a choice that leads to more pollution and more illness within our communities. However, that's exactly what recent proposals in Congress have sought to do.

When elected leaders like Sen. Richard Burr and Rep. Sue Myrick voted to permanently relax clean air standards that have protected public health from seen and unseen pollution for over 40 years, they stood with polluters instead of their neighbors and the residents of Charlotte. Each of the proposals they supported would have increased invisible but harmful types of pollution like carbon dioxide that is released by burning fossil fuels.

I am thankful that these recent attempts were ultimately unsuccessful so that, for now, the Clean Air Act can continue working to clean our air, protect creation and protect the health of our children, seniors and our families. In fact, as reported by the Observer in March 2011, new pollution standards have been proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency that would reduce the amount of mercury, arsenic and other air toxins that power plants will be allowed to emit. These long-awaited standards may prevent thousands more premature deaths and heart attacks each year, further improving the health and well-being of our communities and reducing the impact we have on the whole of God's creation.

This is most welcome news here in North Carolina, where more than 200,000 children suffer from asthma, the leading cause of school absenteeism in our state. According to the 2010 North Carolina Asthma Epidemiology Update, asthma has accounted for more than one third of the chronic health conditions reported by school nurses since 2005. Our economy feels the pinch when parents have to miss days of work to stay home with these sick children, and household budgets certainly feel the pinch from increased health costs. Compounding these hardships is the stark fact that African-Americans are more than twice as likely to suffer from asthma and related illnesses as Caucasians are here in North Carolina.

It is hard to conceive why legislators would want to roll back public health or environmental protections when we can see first-hand the impact that air and water pollution has on all residents of our state. We need elected leaders to start making better decisions about the long-term health of our communities and creation. We are called to seek justice for the vulnerable and serve as stewards for all creation. Each of us deserves to live in a world with clean air to breathe and clean water to drink and when we have the ability to protect the least among us from many forms of pollution, it is a moral duty to do well by doing good.