My name is Richard Dunkel and I am an 

electrician, as well as a business agent for 

the IBEW Local 5 here in Pittsburgh. IBEW 

Local 5 represents approximately 3500 

inside construction electricians covering 22 

counties in North and Southwestern PA. 

I have worked in the power generation 

industry for my entire career, as well as my 

father. He worked on the construction of 

Keystone, Conemaugh, and Homer City 

Power Plants, and later oversaw the 

addition of scrubbers at Conemaugh and 

the installation of a SCR at the Homer City 

··Power Plant. I have also worked on 

numerous maintenance outages at these 

plants as well as maintenance outages at 

the First Energy Hatfield Plant and the 

Allegheny Power Systems-Armstrong Plant, 

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both of which have been recently closed 

down. The power generation industry has 

provided two generations of my family with 

a good, middle class standard of living. 

Recently in our 22 county area, we had 4 

coal burning power plants shut down 

costing the members we represent 

hundreds of lost job opportunities and tens 

of thousands of man hours worked. 

Unfortunately, the effects of these plant 

closures reach further than the electricians 

we represent; thousands of building 

tradesmen, utility workers, miners, railroad 

workers and barge operators have also lost 

their jobs. With this increase of job loss, 

there is a negative impact on the economic 

development that affects manufacturing 

expansion, local, state and federal tax 

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revenues and small businesses. Estimates 

show that the clean power plan could cost 

the United States more than 150,000 jobs 

by the year 2020. 

First and foremost, let's not forget, if the 

clean power plan in enacted, the rest of the 

world will continue to burn coal. 

Developing nations such as China and India 

will continue to burn~"at an increasing rates 

and these two countries combined, contain 

more than 1/3 of the world's population 

and currently use less 10% of the world's 

electricity. Because of the industrial 

revolution occurring in these developing 

nations, this number will go up drastically 

___l_tvcet>-~Lover the next decade. We believe that the 

plan is premature since we do not know the 

extent to which other nations including 

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China and India, will be willing to commit a 

truly global program of greenhouse gas 

reductions. We cannot "go it alone" and 

expect that our actions will have any 

meaningful climate impact in a world 

economy that is using more coal and other 

fossil fuels every day. 

Second, the EPA's proposal for 

increasing the use of natural gas combined 

cycle generating units will lead to a 

significant increase in natural gas prices. 

This price increase will be further amplified 

by the export of natural gas to these 

developing nations. Independent analysts' 

project that utility gas demand may rise 

three-fold above the EPA's current forecast. 

Consumers and energy-intensive industries 

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will be required to bear the brunt these gas 

• • pnce mcreases. 

We all agree that the air needs to be 

cleaner, but these proposed steps have 

deep reaching effects on the economy and 

the future ge~~rations of the United States. 

The possibility losing 150,000 highly skilled, 

good paying jobs could be an economic 

disaster. This great country, the United 

States, cannot "go it alone" and implement 

the Clean Power Plan without having a 

reasonable assurance the rest of the world 

will follow in our footsteps. It is my hope 

that these hearings provide cleaner air 

without sacrificing the economic future of 

the United States. 

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