Attendees at the Sierra Club’s Hearing for Healthy Communities on Tuesday told the EPA why our country needs the Clean Power Plan. Photo Courtesy of The Sierra Club
But by repealing the plan and his management of the EPA in general, what is Pruitt doing if not favoring fossil fuels over renewables?
For the proposed repeal, it seems a cornerstone of his strategy is to make sure the public has as little voice as possible in the process. While the Obama administration held 11 public listening sessions and four public hearings nationwide before finalizing the Clean Power Plan in 2015, Pruitt has scheduled only one public hearing for its proposed repeal.
Tell Trump’s climate-denying EPA that America is tired of relying on dirty energy.
The lone hearing, which was held from Nov. 28 to 29 in Charleston, W.Va., attracted environmental advocates and coal barons alike.
Robert Murray, CEO of Murray Energy Corporation, sat near roughly 20 Murray Energy coal workers in full uniform at the hearing. Murray claimed that the Clean Power Plan — which never took effect due to lawsuits from multiple states, including West Virginia — “would devastate coal-fired electricity generation in America.”
But Murray conveniently left out that most of the downturn in the coal industry is due to economics and competition from natural gas.
Jeremy Richardson with the Union of Concerned Scientists stated that “coal mining jobs have been declining since the middle of the last century because of mechanization, the shift to cheaper, large-scale surface mining operations out West, and geologic realities that have led to declining productivity in Appalachian coal mines. It is easy to blame the policies of the last president for all of coal’s problems, but it simply isn’t true.”
“Second, it is the job of the Environmental Protection Agency to protect human health and the environment,” Richardson continued. “It is not the job of the EPA to protect the coal industry.”
The Clean Power Plan was projected in 2015 to reduce carbon pollution from the power sector 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
At one of the EPA’s original hearings for the plan in 2014, retired coal miner Stanley Sturgill, now 72, gave some of the most moving testimony. According to HuffPost, Sturgill, who was diagnosed with black lung disease after more than four decades of working the mines told the EPA, “We’re dying, we’re literally dying for you to help us.”
At this week’s hearing, Sturgill spoke up again.
“Now to be realistic, do I really think that the administration cares what this old worn coal miner has to say?” said Sturgill. “I really doubt it. But I had to be here, and as long as I can draw a breath, I’m going to keep working to fight climate change and protect the land and country I love.”
Near the EPA’s hearing, the Sierra Club helped the agency do their job by accommodating more voices at the Hearing for Healthy Communities to collect additional comments to send to the EPA.
“People came out today to the Hearing for Healthy Communities in order to say to the EPA that the Clean Power Plan is pro-worker and pro-environment,” Sierra Club Senior Organizing Representative Bill Price wrote in an email. “Scott Pruitt lies when he says we can’t have jobs and a clean environment. The People know better.”
The Alliance for Appalachia, a coalition of nonprofits including Appalachian Voices, released a statement on the proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan.
“Although the economy of the region has been heavily dependent on the mining and burning of coal, we have seen the toll that these industries have taken on the health and well-being of the land and people who live here,” the statement reads. “The Clean Power Plan contained the promise of new alternative sources of energy production that would benefit the environment and provide for lower energy bills for our people.”
The EPA is accepting public comments on the proposed repeal until Jan. 16, 2018. Tell Scott Pruitt that the Clean Power Plan is needed to protect our communities from the effects of climate change and air pollution.
For more about the Trump Administration’s attempts to boost the coal industry while ignoring climate science, read this post from earlier this month.
Kevin RidderBorn in Arizona and raised in Tennessee, Kevin’s love of the mountains drove him to move even further east to Boone, N.C., where he serves as The Appalachian Voice's Associate Editor and a communications associate for the organization.
PREVIOUS
Do not repeal the clean water act.
One of the most important gifts nature gave us.
Thank you
I demand that the EPA do its job and protect the health of the American people, not the needs of the coal industry, which it is NOT part of its job! This climate-denying EPA must listen to an America that is tired of relying on dirty energy that is literally, directly responsible for killing tens of thousands of people every year!
DO NOT REPEAL ANY PART OF THE CLEAN AIR ACT!
I demand that the EPA do its job and protect the health of the American people, not the needs of the coal industry, which it is NOT part of its job! This climate-denying EPA must listen to an America that is tired of relying on dirty energy that is literally, directly responsible for killing tens of thousands of people every year!
DO NOT REPEAL ANY PART OF THE CLEAN AIR ACT!
As a father and grandfather I cannot understand the voracious greed that drives Republicans to sacrifice the health of their own children for the sake of the next dollar.
Support the Clean Power Plan!
Support the Clean Power Plan!!
The Trump Administration’s under Scott Pruitt’s politically-based plans to REPEAL the clean power plan ACTIONS AGAINST GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE will cause dangerous increases in pollution and degrade the quality of life in the USA. I reject the actions of Scott Pruitt to repeal the Clean Power Plan, which is designed to reduce our nation’s CO2 emmissions. Scott Pruitt’s mis-guided and ignorant actions are dangerous and a threat to all life on the planet. Keep the Clean Energy Plan and reduce the emmissions of CO2 into the atmosphere, and reduce the pollution caused by mining and burning coal, oil, and natural gas.
The Clean Power Plan contained the promise of new alternative sources of energy production that would benefit the environment and provide for lower energy bills for our people.
Clean air and clean water cannot be compromised. With all due respect to the EPA — or should I perhaps say, the Trump version of environmental “protection,” which seems closer to environmental “pillage”? — this agency has shown a callous disregard for its mandate. I hope its members will reconsider prior decisions and forthcoming policies.
Even not considering the cost of Climate change/warming, the savings in health care costs are greater than and justify the increased cost of clean power plan.
We need clean energy
Do not repeal the Clean Power Plan. The EPA is supposed to protect the environment and the plant and animal inhabitants. Your job is to protect human beings from the harmful effects of pollution and climate change. Renewable energy resources is the best way to support our energy needs and have a clean environment. It makes sense fiscally and morally. Your job is to protect the American People not the big polluters. The smart ones are already winding down their fossil fuel use and turning to clean energy.
Protect people not profits.
We must protect our natural resources, not exploit them.
Please support the Clean Power Plan.