For years I’ve worked on climate, health and equity programs across Washington state—from weatherization assistance to induction cooking demonstrations to community air quality monitoring near Sea-Tac Airport. Every single one of these programs starts with good intentions: help families lower energy bills, reduce indoor air pollution, and protect communities from toxic air. But here’s what I’ve learned: when programs are complicated to access, the families who need them most can’t get them.
An example is weatherization rebates, which are financial incentives, tax credits, or direct assistance programs that help homeowners and renters make energy-efficient upgrades to their homes. This can include adding insulation or sealing air leaks to lower utility bills, improve comfort, and reduce energy consumption, with options available for low-income households and general homeowners through federal, state, and utility programs.
But these require homeowners to navigate multiple agencies, fill out lengthy applications, coordinate contractor bids, and wait months for approval. Families working two jobs don’t have time for that. Renters can’t access the programs at all. People with limited English struggle with the paperwork. So the families paying the highest portion of their income on energy—the ones who need help most—end up locked out while well-resourced households get thousands of dollars in upgrades.
The same pattern shows up in air quality work. When pollution disproportionately harms airport communities—where residents are more likely to be immigrants, renters, and lower-income families—the solutions offered by local governments are often individual: buy air purifiers, close your windows, check air quality apps. But these families can’t afford expensive purifiers. They need open windows in summer because they don’t have air conditioning. They’re working multiple shifts and don’t have time to check apps constantly. Individual solutions don’t work for people without individual resources.
Digital safety for children follows exactly this pattern. Research shows there is a connection between social media use and increased anxiety and depression in teens. The main solution parents are told? Navigate parental controls across dozens of apps, each with different settings, buried in different menus, requiring different levels of technical knowledge to operate.
Parents working multiple jobs don’t have hours to research settings. Recent immigrants face language barriers in technical interfaces. Families without reliable internet or newer devices can’t access many controls at all. Meanwhile, children in well-resourced households get multiple layers of protection while others get none. We’ve made digital safety something only advantaged families can achieve.
Some proposed solutions would make this worse. Requiring biometric scans or government IDs for age verification on every platform means handing sensitive data to dozens of companies, creating security risks that always hit vulnerable communities hardest. Giving parents full surveillance of teens’ accounts would cut off LGBTQ+ youth in hostile households from online communities that provide crucial support.
We know that social media consumption by teens is a concern. The App Store Accountability Act works differently. Introduced in the House by Rep. John James and in the Senate by Senator Mike Lee, when a child tries to download an app, their parent gets one notification through the phone’s app store. The parent approves or denies with one click. That’s it. No multiple platforms. No buried settings. No technical expertise required. Every family gets the same simple tool regardless of their time, language, or resources.
This is how effective solutions actually work. In building electrification, we don’t tell every homeowner to become an electrical engineer—we provide rebates, trained contractors, and clear guidance. For air quality, we fought for community monitoring systems and enforceable standards rather than telling individuals to solve air pollution themselves. These approaches work because they build infrastructure everyone can access, not complicated systems only some people can navigate. This legislation has been introduced in Congress and it would be fantastic if it passes this year so there is no longer a patchwork of policies that vary state by state.
Age verification within the app store itself does the same thing. Parents keep control over what apps their children download without needing surveillance of what happens inside those apps. Privacy is protected because verification happens once, in one place, instead of scattering sensitive data across multiple platforms. And it’s simple enough that every parent can actually use it.
My work with tribal nations, LGBTQ+ organizations, immigrant communities, and environmental justice groups has shown me that equity means removing barriers, not adding complexity. The App Store Accountability Act removes barriers. It gives every parent a tool they can actually use to make decisions about their children’s digital lives.
As a member of the Washington Health Equity Alliance, I’m supporting this legislation because I’ve seen too many well-intentioned programs fail the people who need them most. Complex systems favor people with time, money, education, and English proficiency. Simple, universal systems serve everyone. On an issue as important as children’s mental health, we need to build infrastructure that actually works for all families—not just those with advantages.
Our congressional delegation should support the App Store Accountability Act because Washington has shown national leadership in equity-centered policy. We understand that solutions must be accessible to everyone or they’re not real solutions. This legislation brings that principle to children’s digital safety.
Ali Lee has served as Climate Reality WA State Chapters coalition lead, Climate Reality King County Chapter past Co Chair, currently the chair for Friends of I-5 CID among other projects and campaigns bringing together climate and justice concerns.
