Comments for EPA hearing on the proposed Clean Power Plan, 

Atlanta, Georgia, July 29, 2014 on behalf ofthe 

Climate Change Task Force of the League of Women Voters of the US. 

t:§j~y_<;_~~an~i~~-frym Birmingham, Alabama, and a proud grandmother. Since 

20GB, I've also been a member of the Climate Change Task Force of the League of 

Women Voters of the United States, the role that brings me here today. Thank you 

for this opportunity to speak- a first for me in my 71 years. 

Picture with me a time almost 43 years ago. I can barely see the smokestacks of 

Birmingham's skyline through the reddish-brown haze that signaled prosperity for 

our community back then. It was November 1971, and the health hazards from 

visible air pollution trapped over our city by stagnant air were so bad that the 

Health Department begged the smokestack industries to shut down for a few days 

until the air cleared and the danger to anyone who breathed was over. 

When industries refused, a Federal District judge, for the first time in the country 

since the year-old Clean Air Act was passed, invoked its emergency powers and 

ordered over 20 of the largest polluters idled until the toxic emergency was over. It 

worked, but city businessmen complained that it was far too aggressive. The county 

health officer said, "If you are saying that we should be counting bodies before we 

do something, I disagree." 1 

Seems to me that's where we are today with invisible carbon pollution from electric 

power plants- needing to act before the 'body count' gets much higher. Already we 

are seeing and feeling the impacts of too much C02- a warming planet, devastating 

extreme weather events, droughts and forest fires, rising sea levels, storm surges 

and an increasing 'body count'- in lives, health, jobs, property and prosperity. 2 

We must set limits on carbon pollution because the market is failing to give us the 

true cost of electric power. I taught college economics. A market only works when 

the price correctly includes the full costs, like health impacts, premature death, 

environmentally destructive mining, and the damages caused by climate change. 

The price for electricity fails to include these external damages. 3 

You can picture it this way: a male African elephant can weigh 6.8 metric tons. 

Using the air as a free waste dump, we're tossing almost 300 million elephants into 

the sky every year- just in the US. 4 Now see them falling back down on us, creating 

havoc with the systems that support us and other life on our planet. 

The Clean Air Act has successfully addressed dangers from particulates, lead and 

harmful gases with benefits significantly greater than the costs, which were far 

lower than the disastrous costs predicted by opponents. s By releasing American 

ingenuity, benefits of this proposed rule can also exceed costs. 6 
In 2010, LWVUS created a Toolkit for Climate Action7 for local Leagues to use as a 

resource for addressing climate disruption. Our recent update focused on adapting 

to changes already in the pipeline, but we still need to dramatically reduce the 

amount of C02 we're dumping into the atmosphere. This proposed rule will support 

the work of our nearly 800 state and local Leagues across the country. 

The good news is that this rule, for example by encouraging energy efficiency, can 

help consumers save energy and money by cutting their electricity use and their 

utility bills. And the proposed Clean Power Plan gives states the flexibility to choose 

the most cost-effective measures to achieve the needed reductions. 8 

The Department of Defense is leading the way- not waiting for certainties that 

never come. They already understand the potential 'body count.' They're managing 

major risks by cutting their energy use and reducing their carbon footprint. 9 

The LWV has advocated reductions in C02 emissions for 15 years. Most recently, 

delegates to our national convention in june voted overwhelmingly to support 

putting a price on carbon. 1o The League and our Climate Change Task Force 

strongly endorse this proposed rule to limit carbon pollution from power plants. 

As for me, personally, I was jolted out of my complacency in 2007 11 and continue to 

learn about the risky carbon business 12 that threatens us and all who come after us. 

I support this rule as a step toward a healthy future I envision for our own young 

and the young of all species. 

Again, thank you. 

Submitted by: 

joyce A. Lanning, Ph.D. 

2102 Williamsburg Way 

Birmingham, AL 35223 

joyce.lanning@gmail.com 

1 "An old cloud of polluted air lifts from Birmingham's shoulders" 

http: I fbi og.al.com / spotnews /2 011/11/ a n~ol d~c I o ud~ of_poll u ted~ai rj.html 

2 2014 National Climate Assessment. U.S. Global Change Research Program 

http:j /nca2014.globalchange.govj 

3 Muller, Nicholas Z., Robert Mendelsohn, and William Nordhaus. 2011. 

"Environmental Accounting for Pollution in the United States Economy."American 

Economic Review, 101(5): 1649-75. 

http:/ /www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi= 10.12 57 jaer.1 01.5.1649 

4 U.S. energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide (C02) by the electric power sector 

in 2012 were 2,039 million metric tons, which is almost 40% of energy-related 

emissions. http:j jwww.eia.gov jtoolsjfaqsjfaq.cfm?id=77&t=l1 
s National Center for Environmental Economics: "The Benefits and Costs of the 

Clean Air Act 1990 to 2010: EPA Report to Congress" 

http:/ /yosemite.epa.gov / eej epa/ eerm.nsfjvwrepnumlookupj ee0295a7opendocument 

6 "Regulatory Impact Analysis for the Proposed Carbon Pollution Guidelines for 

Existing Power Plants and Emission Standards for Modified and Reconstructed 

Power Plants: Chapter 8: Comparison Of Benefits And Costs" 

http:j jwww.epa.gov jttn/ecasjregdatajRIAsj111dproposalRIAfinal0602.pdf 

7 League of Women Voters of the US: Toolkit for Climate Action. 

http:/ jparticipate.lwv.orgj c/9217 /p jsalsajweb /common/public/ content"?con tent_ 

item_KEY=3766 

8 " ... we believe that the impacts on electricity rates and bills from well-designed C02 

pollution control programs will be modest in the near term, especially for lowincome customers" and "With the EPA Clean Power Plan the rate goes up but the bill 

goes down." EPA's Clean Power Plan: States' Tools for Reducing Costs and Increasing 

Benefits to Consumers, Analysis Group, july 2014, p. 3. 

0 Department of Defense: Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan, FY 2012 

http:/ jwww.acq.osd.mil/ie/ download/ green_ energy j dod_sustainabili tyj2 012 /DoD 

%20SSPP'%20FY12-FINAL.PDF 

10 "The LWVUS should support 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." 

11 The Nobel Peace Prize 2007 was awarded jointly to Intergovernmental Panel on 

Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (AI) Gore Jr. "for their efforts to build up 

and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the 

foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change" 

http:/ jwww.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/ peacejla ureates/2007 j 

12 Risky Business: The Economic Risks of Climate Change in the United States, 

www.riskybusiness.org