Testimony to the EPA on the Clean Power Plan, July 29, 2014 

Karen Melton 

Board Member, Chester Counter Citizens for Climate Protection (4CP) 

3232 W. Penn St. 

Philadelphia, PA 19129 

Karen.melton59@gmail.com 

My name is Karen Melton from Philadelphia and I am testifying as a board member of 

the Chester County Citizens for Climate Protection -- a 501 c3 organization dedicated to 

public outreach and education on climate change. 

This hearing, like many others, is about how much loss of life and health and natural 

resources we are prepared to trade off so that fossil fuel industries can continue to treat 

air and water like free sewers. This question gets asked across a broad range of 

pollutants generated by power plants, from nitrous oxides, VOCs and sulfur dioxides to 

arsenic, mercury and selenium. Today we talk about CO2. 

I would like to briefly respond to an argument that gets made repeatedly by industry: 

that coal is a cheap energy source. 

Coal certainly is a cheap energy source if we only look at what it costs to dig it or blow it 

up out of the ground and deliver it to a power plant, which is the cost we see on our 

electric bills. But if we factor in the external costs, some studies estimate it would be 

two to three times as expensive. To mention just a few: 

• An estimated 250,000 coal miners have died from black lung disease, 10,000 just in 

the last decade. Three times as many suffer lifelong respiratory problems. 

• The Black Lung Benefits Program that is supposed to be paid for by the coal 

industry, is reported to have "borrowed $8.7 billion from the federal Treasury so far." 

That is expected to increase to $68 billion by 2040. 

• An MIT study estimated there are 200,000 early deaths each year in the U.S. due to 

air pollution, with 52,000 associated with power generation. (9) 

• A University of Pittsburgh study concluded that people in the Pittsburgh area have 

twice the risk of developing cancer within their lifetimes due to pollutants in the air 

they breathe. (5) 

• People in Appalachia where mountain top removal coal mining occurs have a 50% 

higher cancer rate and 42% higher birth defect rate, with public health costs 

estimated somewhere around $75 billion peryear. (11) 
These are all costs of coal that don't show up on electric bills, but we are paying them 

nonetheless. And we haven't mentioned -abek the nearly incalculable costs of climate 

change. 

Had we been paying the true cost of energy, efficiency would be built into every building 

and product we use. Devices and places to live would compete based on their 

efficiency. Instead, a recent ranking of the world's 16 largest economies for energy 

efficiency put the U.S. at number 13. 

Despite all of those costs, we also know that air quality in the U.S. has improved 

significantly and continues to improve. We have come a long way from the days when 

Pittsburgh looked like Bejing does today (15) as a result of air quality standards put in 

place by the EPA and implemented by the states. I assume air quality like Bejing is 

what people who want to defund the EPA consider the good old days. 

Deaths associated with power plant pollution have dropped, sulfur dioxide pollution is 

down 68% and Nitrous Oxides are down by 55% as a result of increased use of 

scrubbers and the retirement of coal plants. (10) 

So EPA you have made a huge difference with some major power plant pollutants, and 

the regulations responsible for these improvements, as this one is, were all predicted by 

industry to cause economic Armageddon, which did not occur. (11) 

I want to thank you so much for the work you did last year with the Tier 3 Vehicle 

Emission and Fuel Standards, and the regulation of toxic discharges into waterways by 

coal-fired power plants. You can probably guess that I wish you had gone much further 

with this clean power plan, but I assume it is the most you consider feasible right now. 

~ 

Please continue pursuing yourIt

C 

 errorist plo ~ to improve air and water quality and 

stabilize our climate. I see it as a good counter measure to the fossil fuel industry's 

cUterrorist plofto reduce population. 

In a few years we need to be back for a hearing on increasing the state targets. 

http://www.inguirer.com/opinion/20140609 Tap all sources of energy.html 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/10/25/u-s-once-had-air-pollution-tomatch-chinas-today/ 

http://www.umwa.org/?q=news/umwa-hold-rally-pittsburgh-protest-proposed-epa-existing power-plantrule 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/does-anyone-like-a-republ b 782773.html 
http://www sustainablebusiness com/index cfm/go/news display/id/25825 

http://www washingtonpost com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/09/26/breathing-easier-washingtond-c-s-remarkable-improvement-in-air-guality/ 

http://www post-gazette com/news/environment/2013/11/21/Report-Allegheny-County-in-top-2-percent-inU-S-for-cancer-risk-from-air-pollution/stories/201311210326#ixzz38cvrTqll 

http://insideclimatenews org/news/20140718/us-ranks-near-bottom-energy-efficiency-germany-tops-list 

(5) http://lae.mit.edu/air-pollution-causes-200000-early-deaths-each-year-in-the-u-s/ 

http://thinkprogress org/climate/2013/11/22/2987131/pittsburghs-unique-air-pollution-residentssuscegtible-cancer-study-says/ 

(6) http://insideclimatenews.org/carbon-copy/20140723/new-data-extreme-temperatures-underscoreplanets-warming-trend-scientists-say 

(7) http://www.post-gazette.com/news/environment/2013/11/21/Report-Alleqheny-County-in-top-2- 

percent-in-U-S-for-cancer-risk-from-air-pollution/stories/201311210326#ixzz38cvrTqll 

(8) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/09/26/breathing-easierwashington-d-c-s-remarkable-improvement-in-air-quality/ 

(9) http:/llae.mit.edulair-pollution-causes-200000-earlv-deaths-each-vear-in-the-u-sl 

(10) http://www.catf.us/fossil/problems/power plants/ 

(11) http://pfenergyicenter.blogspot.com/2014/07/blaming-epa-war-on-facts.html 

(12) http://www.treehugger.com/energy-policy/renewables-receive-23-77-trillion-energy-investments2030.html 

(a) http://aceee.org/portal/national-policy/international-scorecard 

(15) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-qang/wp/2013/10/25/u-s-once-had-airpollution-to-match-chinas-tody/