Healthy air means healthier kids. Before Thanksgiving, in a victory for Maine families, Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins helped defeat a bill that would have eliminated an updated cross-state air pollution rule.

That rule sets important limits on the pollution that out-of-state sources can dump into the air we breathe here in Maine. We are very happy that our two senators put Maine families first, by voting against this terrible bill.

Unfortunately, several remaining measures — including three bills introduced by Sen. Collins — threaten to weaken and delay healthy air protections. This is bad news for all Mainers, especially the 25,000 Maine kids who suffer from asthma.

Our 12-year-old son, Jake, is one of those kids.

We need our senators and representatives to defeat all measures that aim to weaken healthy air protections. We now need them to fight for Jake’s right — and the right of all Maine families — to breathe healthy, clean air.

With Jake, we’ve seen the impacts of unhealthy air up close and personal.

No parent should have to watch their child suffer through an asthma attack. Watching Jake struggle to breathe is very scary for us, not to mention literally life-threatening for him. After he wakes up in the middle of the night because he’s coughing non-stop and not able to breathe normally, it’s heart-breaking to hear him say that he hopes he can get back to sleep so he doesn’t have to miss school the next day.

Jake’s condition has also meant he doesn’t always get to do things other kids get to do. On humid summer days, when ozone levels are higher, he can’t run around as much and he has to either take lots of breaks indoors, or many times he just has to stay inside altogether.

We are not a political family, but we cannot stand by as polluters push to further delay compliance with modern healthy air standards. What is particularly striking to us is how often Jake feels the effects of unhealthy air without there actually being an official warning. He’s like the canary in the coal mine — his body tells us when the air is unhealthy, even when the official standards don’t.

The message there is pretty obvious — the current standards are not as protective of health as they should be. The best scientists in the country are telling us the same thing. Congress should allow the updated standards to take effect, without delay.

Two of the bills introduced by Sen. Collins (S.1538 and S.1606) would provide polluters with the tools necessary to tie up enforcement efforts with frivolous legal challenges.

The third bill, S.1392, would require that boiler emission safety standards be re-written in terms favorable to industrial polluters, and further delay compliance with those standards until 2018.

We have waited long enough for healthier air. It is unfair to ask our 12-year-old son Jake to wait until 2018, when he is a young adult, before polluters stop dumping toxic waste into the air he breathes.

As owners of a small family business right here in Maine, and as a family struggling to make ends meet, we cannot afford to wait. We know all about the high costs of health insurance, and out-of-pocket medical expenses, that are making it so tough for Maine families and small businesses to grow and prosper.

Jake’s doctor is still trying to find the right medicines to improve Jake’s lung functions. And when Jake is having problems with his asthma, he sometimes ends up at a specialist’s office. Those visits and the medicines used to treat asthma are extremely expensive.

Those costs are virtually all preventable and they just add to the bottom line we all pay in insurance rates. Asthma and other lung diseases are a huge burden on our health care system, and we’re all paying the price. Healthy air means healthier kids and lower costs for all of us.

We need to do everything we can to protect Maine children and all people from dangerous air pollution.

We need our senators and representatives to stand up for Maine families and businesses. That’s got to be their top priority.

Mark and Lisa Conley live in Raymond.