The deaths, flooding, water contamination, and infrastructure destruction caused by Hurricane Florence and Typhoon Mangkhut are stark reminders that our world is facing the potential of runaway climate change. Meanwhile, the United States is actively dismantling meaningful efforts to avoid climate change disaster. For example, the Trump administration recently proposed replacing the Clean Power Plan with a new rule it has dubbed the “Affordable Clean Energy” (ACE) rule. The ACE rule is an attempt to give nothing more than lip-service to controlling greenhouse gas emissions, and another big handout to polluting fossil fuel companies.
Please join us in opposing the ACE rule by filing your comment here by October 31. We have a template you can use to get started below.
The Clean Power Plan was the first-ever federal regulation to place limits on carbon pollution from power plants, the largest source of climate-driving carbon pollution in the U.S. Under the authority of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Power Plan established achievable standards that gave states flexibility to design cost-effective pathways toward reducing carbon pollution from power generation. It was expected to reduce U.S. carbon emissions from the power sector by at least 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
The ACE is a toothless, wholly ineffective replacement for the Clean Power Plan. It does not require states to achieve specific levels of reduction in carbon emissions and actually limits the air pollution limitations that states can place on coal-fired power plants. Incredibly, EPA admits that the health impacts of the extra air pollution that will result from the lower standards could cause as many as 1,400 premature deaths every year until 2030, along with many other adverse human health impacts.
In some ways, the ACE could actually be worse than no regulation of greenhouse gases at all. For example, it would promote the use of “biomass” as a fuel source. Biomass is nothing more than burning wood for energy. Earlier this year, EPA announced a policy of treating biomass as “carbon neutral” based on the idea that it is a renewable resource and new trees will eventually capture carbon in the atmosphere. However, this ignores that fact that the carbon-capture happens over a longer period of time than we have to prevent catastrophic impacts of climate change. Furthermore, promoting biomass could lead to clear-cutting of forests—in the southeastern U.S., forests are sadly already being decimated to feed European demand for biomass.
Please file your comment opposing the ACE by October 31. Here is a template to get you started:
I am commenting to express my concerns about EPA’s replacement for the Clean Power Plan, called the “Affordable Clean Energy” rule, or ACE. The title of the plan is only partly truthful – while it does nothing to promote clean energy, it does promote affordability, but only for coal companies.
This rule is so far from what is needed to combat climate change. By setting performance standards for power plants that only reflect emission reductions that can be achieved through making existing plants more efficient, it does not even promote the build-out of clean energy. To actually address climate change, we need stringent greenhouse emissions standards and a massive push for policies that will actually promote clean energy.
The ACE could make greenhouse gas emissions worse. For example, it promotes the use of biomass as a fuel, based on EPA’s faulty premise that biomass should be considered carbon neutral. Encouraging power plants to burn trees is not as carbon neutral as EPA suggests, considering the time it takes new trees to grow. It also could lead to deforestation, meaning fewer trees available to take carbon out of the atmosphere, along with many other adverse environmental impacts.
Even EPA admits that this rule will have widespread adverse health impacts on the public. This rule is nothing but a ploy to assist the struggling coal industry, at the cost of the planet’s climate and the lives of those that live downwind from coal-fired power plants.
For these reasons, I urge you to not finalize the ACE rule.
Feature image: The logging of wetlands is a problem with biomass production in the southeastern United States. (© Fern)
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