## EPA Testimony in Pittsburgh, PA

Docket# EPA-HQ-OAR-2013-0602 and Docket# EPA-HQ-OAR-2013-0630 Miriam E. Lindauer July 31, 2014

My name is Miriam Lindauer and I live here in Allegheny County. I'm a retired computer programmer. I strongly support the proposed EPA regulations limiting carbon emissions from fossil-fuel burning plants. We need the EPA to step in and make power plant standards as strong as possible. The new rules should encourage renewable energy instead of natural gas, which may burn cleaner than coal but which causes terrible water, air and noise pollution during its extraction from Marcellus Shale. Fossil fuel emissions are undeniably causing our planet's atmosphere to warm, affecting the health of every living thing. I have asthma and would not wish it on anyone else, so the following fact gets my attention: According to a Stanford University study,' "... for each increase of one degree Celsius caused by carbon dioxide, the resulting air pollution [will] lead annually to about a thousand additional deaths and many more cases of respiratory illness and asthma in the United States." Worsening global warming will not only have terrible effects on peoples' health, but will cost everyone in terms of rising sea levels, more acidic oceans, stronger storms and widespread drought. A recent report by the US National Park Service indicates that our national parks are being adversely affected by global warming right now': Wildfires came perilously close to Sequoia National Park in 2013, and Glacier National Park may be glacier-free by 2030. It is wishful thinking to claim that an unregulated free market will fix all of society's problems. There is no aspect of the free market that provides an inherent profit motive for industry to limit its pollution voluntarily. This does not mean the industry is evil, it just means that there's no money in it for them. The only way to stop global warming is to limit carbon pollution from all sources. Burning fossil fuels to generate electricity produces almost 40% of carbon pollution in the United States. Since the fossil-fuel industry will not voluntarily set limits, the EPA must do so. The proposed rules are a step, a small step, in the right direction. Claims of job losses in coal producing areas are way overstated. Coal jobs will not disappear overnight, as it will take years to complete the transition to cleaner energy. Furthermore, increasing renewable energy production will create more clean-energy jobs. Many of those Appalachian hills that cover coal seams are perfect spots for energy-generating windmills, which require a lot of maintenance by blue-collar workers. Installing solar panels and developing technology to conserve energy create even more jobs. There are already more blue-collar solar-and wind-energy jobs in this country than there are coal industry jobs 3 , and those clean jobs don't give workers Black Lung disease. One role of government is to resolve conflicts between the rights of individuals and the rights of corporations. We have conflicting interests here. The fossil fuel industry's business model includes emitting unhealthy carbon pollutants into the air and water at no cost to them. That business model conflicts with our right to clean air and water. They use our air, water and infrastructure for free, and they do not pay the cost that their pollution causes.

## EPA Testimony in Pittsburgh, PA

Docket# EPA-HQ-OAR-2013-0602 and Docket# EPA-HQ-OAR-2013-0630 Miriam E. LindauerJuly 31, 2014

Who does pay the cost? People like me who have pollution-caused respiratory diseases pay the cost. Governments fighting fires in the West pay the cost. Coastal cities being slowly flooded by rising sea levels pay the cost. Future generations who will never see the glaciers that are melting away in Glacier National Park and who will never see the giant Sequoias which may well be incinerated by wildfires will pay the cost. We should not be forced to bear this cost any longer. The right of fossil fuel industries to do business as they choose ends where our lungs begin. Their right to do business as they please ends when their activity threatens our right to a livable environment. The government represents us, the flesh-and-blood, breathing individuals of this nation. If the EPA does not protect our right to a healthy environment by issuing strong carbon emission rules, who will? Thank you.

1 Study by Mark Z. Jacobson published in Geophysical Research Letters in 2008, as reported in Science Daily. http://www.sciencedaily.comkeleases/2008/01/080103135757.htm

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0101302

4 Coal = 174,000 full-time blue collar in 2006; wind + solar = 193,000 in 2013 Politifact. "Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse says there are more U.S. jobs in solar industry than coal mining."http://www.politifact.com/rhode-islandistatements/2014/jul/06/sheldon-whitehouse/there-are-already-morea merican-jobs-solar-industrj http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Coal and jobs in the United States http://www.agprofessional.com/news/Solar-energy-jobs-increase-wind-power-decrease-265401441.html?page=2