Testimony of Peter Gorr 

EPA Public Hearing on Carbon Pollution Standards for New Power Plants 

Chicago, IL 

May 24, 2012 

My name is Peter Gorr. I live in Palatine IL, am a retired business executive and hold a 

MBA from the University of Chicago. 

I am testifying today in support the Carbon Pollution Standards for new power plants. 

You will hear from many people, and even your own documents highlight, the 

importance of these standards as relates to environmental and health effects. These are 

critically important but I wish to focus on this matter from another perspective. 

We like to think of our economy as essentially a free and fair market economy. I say 

"free and fair" because a totally unregulated free market is anything but fair. What 

makes the market more fair are rational and reasonable regulations. Generally, and 

unfortunately, regulations are required to protect the health, safety, and wealth of the 

public. In a perfect world, they shouldn't be needed, but it is not a perfect world with 

powerful corporations run by many individuals driven more by greed and power than the 

public interest. We continue to struggle through economic events brought on by nothing 

more than these same shortcomings in a under regulated financial industry. 

The energy industry is also anything but free and fair. Fortunately, the industry has 

evolved to offer many alternatives for generating energy. Unfortunately, it is not a level 

playing field between these alternatives and fossil fuels and this is in direct conflict with 

free market principles. We now have alternatives that effectively and efficiently generate 

energy with no carbon emissions. I know because I own such a system. I converted my 

home to solar generated electricity and produce over 8 mwh of electricity per year with 

not what is being allowed under these standards, namely over 8000 lbs. of carbon 

emissions, but rather I produce zero carbon emissions. Also I generate energy at a very 

competitive rate to what is offered from the utility. 

The point I wish to make is that it is no longer required to hand fossil fuel supplied plants 

special treatments which improve their profits and give them an unfair competitive 

advantage at the expense of the publics' health and safety. In the case of carbon 

emissions we are talking about the health, safety, and wealth of the public for 

generations to come. I am also a grandfather and I am greatly concerned about the 

future my children and grandchildren face. The idea of allowing an industry to ignore 

some of their costs of production flies in the face of free and fair market principles. 

These principles consider waste a sign of inefficiency, and pollution is certainly waste. 

Free markets penalize inefficiency yet the energy industry has been rewarded. Again 
the key point is there are clean and efficient alternatives that are struggling to gain 

meaningful market share because of the advantages given to their competition, fossil 

fuels. These alternatives like wind and solar do not produce these negative externalities 

like pollution. All their costs are ·Internalized and as such must find their way into their 

pricing. Fossil fuels have been allowed to pollute with much of the cost not reflected in 

their price but rather in the publics' taxes, as we clean up after them, in our doctor's bills 

as we try to recover from the health effects, and in our insurance premiums as 

devastating climate events inflict huge losses. The Stern Review on the Economics of 

Climate Change estimates that already 1% of Global GOP is required each year to deal 

with the impacts of climate change. This same report states with business as usual we 

face an annual investment exceeding 5% of Global GOP. This is unimaginable. With 

electricity generation one of the leading contributors of C02, the positive economic 

impact of limiting emissions is huge. 

As a professional whose job it was to advance products and strategies that delivered 

profits, how much easier my job would have been if I could have ignored some of my 

production costs while my competitors could not. The time has come to not allow any 

business to dump their garbage on the public. We are not avoiding cost. We are simply 

delaying the payment and worse yet shifting the burden to our children and their 

children. If fossil fuels cannot be competitive without special cost avoidance, I offer they 

do not have a marketable product. 

In conclusion, while the environmental and health benefits of limiting carbon pollution 

are well known and by themselves reason enough to establish these standards, the 

economic benefits are equally profound and create a win-win-win scenario for the 

public. 

Thank you. 

Peter Gorr 

1025 W. Wood St. 

Palatine, IL 60067 

847-991-2185 

pagorr@comcast. net