America's air monitoring system is falling apart — and that means more people are breathing dangerous air without ever knowing it. Over the past 20 years, the number of government air monitors nationwide has fallen by nearly half. Networks tracking cancer-causing chemicals like vinyl chloride, chloroprene, and benzene have shrunk even more. Nearly six in ten U.S. counties have no public air monitor at all, and where monitors do exist, they're often miles from the biggest polluters and don't even test for the chemicals those facilities release most.

This isn't an accident. Federal funding for the monitoring network has dropped more than 35 percent over the last two decades, adjusted for inflation, and the equipment that remains is aging and failing. The people hit hardest are often in Black and low-income communities, which already carry a disproportionate share of the cancer risk from toxic air pollution.

As Penn State researcher Nelson Roque put it, "We've realized the value of other infrastructure, and yet not this one. Last I checked, we all breathe air."

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the power to restore and expand this critical network instead of letting it keep shrinking. Communities living next to refineries, chemical plants, and industrial sites deserve real, reliable information about what's in the air they breathe every day — not silence, and not guesswork.

We're asking the EPA to fully restore and expand federal funding for public air quality monitoring, with priority given to communities near major industrial polluters. Sign the petition to demand real air monitoring for every community — because no one should have to guess whether the air they breathe is safe.