### 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 your I t 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.htmlhttp://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.htmlhttp://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-easier

washington-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/