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THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS

of Maryland & of Montgomery County, MD.

and

THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF MARYLAND


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® A ° 111 Cathedral St #201, Annapolis, MD (410) 269-0232

Comments for EPA hearing on the proposed Clean Power Plan

Washington DC, July 30, 2014

I am Linda Silversmith from Rockville, Maryland -- a member of the League of Women Voters in four different states, totaling 44 years, as well as a person who awoke to the need to actively care about Earth and the environment on Earth Day 1970. This timing came after a vacation that included driving at age 10 on a family vacation through the factory-caused visible smog formerly found in Pittsburgh and after seeing photos of an earlier smoggy London in England, but before I developed asthma while my two siblings developed other immunological diseases and before I learned key elements about ecology as a science while preparing to teach college biology classes — to non-science majors -- that included an environmental component.


### UrQency. In retrospect it is sad that the United States did not have the foresight 30 years ago to schedule the steps being proposed in the 2014 Clean Power Plan. While members of the League of Women Voters in Maryland are definitely pleased that EPA has stepped forward with this proposal, I speak on their behalf today to urge this administration (1) to strengthen the plan further and (2) to begin to spell out how best to set a price on carbon emissions. Indeed, in June 2014 by an overwhelming vote, League members at our biennial convention passed a resolution "supporting a price on carbon emissions that will increase in stages, as part of an overall program to improve energy efficiency and to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy, fast enough to avoid serious damage to the climate system". This resolution is in line with 15 years of League advocacy for reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Power plants — our single largest source -- account for 40% of the carbon pollution in the United States, the type of invisible pollution that is causing and accelerating climate change. For the sake of our children, our children's children, and future generations, we need to act now, AND the United States needs to become a leader in fighting and ameliorating climate change instead of being the leader in the highest energy use per person in the world.It may take a special kind of courage by both industrialists and citizens to put aside shortterm profits and convenience for long-term good. Scientific calculations show that we cannot afford to use up all of the remaining fossil fuel supplies on Earth without endangering Earth's livability. The third National Climate Assessment report, available since early May 2014 [ 

### http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/ ] stresses that the U.S. is already undergoing damages

League of Women Voters of Montgomery County, Maryland, Inc., 12216 Parklawn Dr., Suite 101, Rockville, MD 20852 Tel.: 301-984-9585 * Fax: 301-984-9586 * Email: Iwvmc

~ erols.com * Web: mont.lwvmd.org

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THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS of Maryland & of Montgomery County, 11ID.

from climate change — such as disappearing shorelines and decreases in numbers of certain plant and animal species -- not as dramatic as the impending disappearance of whole Pacific islands, but scary nonetheless. [The movie 

### Chasing Ice (2012) also provides some dramatic examples of climate change.]



### Economics. While early economists did not recognize that the prices of goods and services need to include the costs of using up resources in the manufacturing process and the costs of cleaning up any pollution caused by their use, surely it is time for the human world to include both of these factors in pricing. There are studies that show that the resulting price changes will be much easier to cope with than the rising costs of not addressing climate change [see 

### http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/the cost of delaying action to stem clim ate change.pdf (July 2014). To any company representatives here today — or reading this statement later — I hope you will look around and see how a number of large companies (e.g., General Mills, National Grid) have already announced plans to actively address climate change.



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I hope that other businesses will rapidly join in — and that all of us will focus as much as possible on choices that increase (1) energy efficiency and (2) use of renewable energy resources. The more we can do now to help mitigate climate change, the less we will have to do to adapt to climate change.

Submitted by — Linda Silversmith, Ph.D. (biochemistry) 260 New Mark Esplanade Rockville MD 20850-2733 lindas@capaccess.org

League of Women Voters of Montgomery County, Maryland, Inc., 12216 Parklawn Dr., Suite 101, Rockville, MD 2085 Tel.: 301-984-9585 * Fax: 301-984-9586 * Email: lwvmc@erols.com * Web: mont.lwvmd.org