Exposure to diesel exhaust has been associated with a wide range of health effects including cancer, neurological effects, a weakened immune system, respiratory disease, and cardiovascular disease (EDF).

Almost 60% of NOx and PM exhaust emissions from the trucks and buses were in urban areas, 45 million people in the United States live, work, or attend school within 300 feet of a major road, airport, or railroad, and 45% of U.S. residents live in counties with unhealthy levels of smog or soot.

Scientists have labeled these areas diesel death zones, and link exposure to diesel exhaust to more than four dozen toxic air pollutants that cause birth defects, lung damage, and cancer.

According to a Clean Air Task Force analysis of EPA data, every year diesel emissions from vehicles are projected to cause Pennsylvanians up to:

• 474 premature deaths

• 184 heart attacks

• 6,789 cases of respiratory symptoms

• 123 asthma-induced visits to the ER

• $5.2 billion in public health costs to the economy

• 20,733 lost workdays

People of color are 61% more likely than white people to live in a county with a failing grade for at least one pollutant and over three times as likely than white people to live in the most polluted counties, according to the ALA.

Asian-American, Black, and Latino communities are being disproportionately burdened with air pollution from vehicles. Respectively, they face 34%, 24% and 23%, higher exposures rates when compared with their white counterparts. UCS

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