On Tuesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began a series of marathon public hearings on proposed emissions regulations for existing power plants. Though the debate has been largely framed as a ‘yes or no’ issue between environment and industry, critical voices are applauding the effort but saying the plan still amounts to ‘too little, too late.’
Roughly 1,600 people are expected to weigh in this week during the two-day, 11-hour sessions in Atlanta, Denver, Pittsburgh, and Washington, DC. In a mass mobilization behind the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, green groups on Tuesday held rallies outside the hearings and organized a virtual “thunderclap,” calling on supporters to promote the proposed rules by submitting public comments online.
While some environmental groups bussed volunteers in for the rallies, others have taken a more critical eye to the plan’s contents.
In her prepared testimony for the EPA hearings, Luísa Abbot Galvão, climate and energy associate at Friends of the Earth, called the new rules “deplorably weak.”
Industry influence, she says, is stopping the U.S. from having a more ambitious energy plan. “This administration is promoting false solutions like clean coal, nuclear, and not-so-natural gas when the right solutions like wind are solar are literally staring us in the face.”
The Clean Power Plan, which puts forth state-specific goals for carbon dioxide emissions from existing fossil fuel-fired power plants, is the first such effort to regulate carbon pollution from power plants—which contribute almost 40 percent of the country’s total emissions. According to the EPA, when the proposed plan is fully implemented in 2030, carbon emissions from these sources will be 30 percent below 2005 levels.
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