1

1 Environmental Protection Agency

2

3

4

5

6 Public Hearing on

7 Proposed Clean Power Plan for

8 Existing Power Plants

9

10

11

12 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

13 Thursday, July 31, 2014

14

15 Room A

16 William S. Moorhead Federal Building

17 1000 Liberty Avenue

18 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15222

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1 EPA PANEL 1:

2 ROBERT WAYLAND, Panel 1 Chair,

3 Energy Strategies Group, EPA

4 WILLIAM NIEBLING, 

5 Office of Air and Radiation, EPA

6 DEBRA DALCHER,

7 Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards,

8 EPA

9

10 EPA PANEL 2:

11 ROBERT WAYLAND, Panel 2 Chair,

12 Energy Strategies Group, EPA

13 DEBRA DALCHER,

14 Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards,

15 EPA

16 JEREMY MARKS

17 Office of Atmospheric Programs, EPA

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1 EPA PANEL 3:

2 TOM POWERS, Panel 3 Chair, and Senior Policy 

3 Advisor, Office of Air and Radiation, EPA

4 SHAWN GARVIN, Regional Administrator, 

5 Region 3, EPA

6 CHRISTIAN FELLNER,

7 Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards,

8 EPA

9 JEREMY MARK,

10 Office of Atmospheric Programs, EPA

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12

13

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15

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1 C O N T E N T S

2 PAGE 

3 PATRICIA DEMARCO, 

4 Carnegie Mellon University 27

5 VINCE BRISINI,

6 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania - DEP 31

7 NATE NATALE,

8 Home Performance Coalition 37

9 MICHAEL MOFFETT,

10 Resident of West Virginia 42

11 NATALIE TENNANT,

12 Secretary of State, West Virginia 50

13 DENNIS SIMMERS,

14 Resident of Pennsylvania 56

15 JOHN BREED,

16 American Security Project 61

17 CINDY FRICH,

18 Elected Delegate, West Virginia 67

19 JOHN PIPPY,

20 Pennsylvania Coal Alliance 73

21 CATHY DAHLKEMPER,

22 County Executive, Erie County Pennsylvania 81 

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1 C O N T E N T S (continued)

2 PAGE

3 PAT BROWN,

4 Sierra Club 86 

5 GARY WIRE,

6 Resident of Pennsylvania 91

7 ROBERT HOWARD,

8 Resident of Pennsylvania 94

9 FRANK SZOLLOSI,

10 National Wildlife Federation 99

11 CRICKET HUNTER,

12 Pennsylvania Interfaith Power and Light 104

13 CHRIS HOWITZ,

14 Resident of Pennsylvania 108

15 EDWARD PERRY,

16 National Wildlife Federation 112

17 DAN ALTERS, 

18 Lycoming Audubon Society 116

19 PAUL SHERLOCK, 

20 Resident of Ohio 120

21 JULIE FRANKS, 

22 Resident of Pennsylvania 123

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1 C O N T E N T S (continued)

2 PAGE

3 KEVIN STEWART, 

4 American Lung Association 126

5 SHANNON FISK, 

6 Earthjustice 132

7 JIM PROBST, 

8 Resident of West Virginia 137

9 CATHY BECKER, 

10 Resident of Ohio 139

11 MARK KLUTHO, 143

12 PEGGY COYLE, 

13 Resident of Michigan 148

14 ROBIN WILSON, 

15 Resident of West Virginia 153

16 LAURA YOKOCHI, 

17 Resident of West Virginia 158

18 LYLE RAY ROBERTS, 

19 Citizen’s Climate Lobby 160

20 RANDY CUNNINGHAM, 

21 Sierra Club 165

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1 C O N T E N T S (continued)

2 PAGE

3 ANDRE SAINT CYR, 

4 Resident of Ohio 170

5 WILLIAM THWING, 

6 Creation Care Partners 174

7 JENNIFER MCINTYRE, 

8 Mom’s Clean Air Force 180

9 THOMAS AU,

10 Clean Air Board of Central Pennsylvania 194

11 THOMAS COLLINS,

12 Resident of Ohio 198

13 MICHAEL SAUVANTE,

14 National Commonwealth Group 202

15 THOMAS SHUSTER, 

16 Sierra Club 208

17 JAMES KOTCON,

18 Sierra Club 214

19 RENE HERNANDEZ,

20 Resident of West Virginia 217

21 JESSIE SHUMACHER,

22 Keystone Energy Efficiency Alliance 220

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1 C O N T E N T S (continued)

2 PAGE

3 BARRY LEWIS,

4 Resident of Pennsylvania 224

5 JOYLETTE PORTLOCK,

6 Communitopia 229

7 BRIAN KAUFFMAN,

8 Keystone Energy Efficiency Alliance 234

9 SALLY WENZEL, 

10 University of Pittsburgh Asthma Institute 239

11 MONICA MORRILL,

12 Citizen of the United States 245

13 LINDSEY MOSELY-ALEXANDER,

14 American Lung Association 253

15 MICHAEL BUTLER,

16 Consumer Energy Alliance 259

17 AKSHAI SINGH,

18 Resident of Ohio 264

19 BRUCE BURCAT,

20 Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy Coalition 270

21 PATRICIA MARIDA,

22 Sierra Club 275

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1 C O N T E N T S (continued)

2 PAGE

3 JAMES VANNOSTRAND,

4 Resident of West Virginia 280

5 RICK CLAYPOOL,

6 Public Citizen 286

7 JOY BERGEY,

8 Resident of Pennsylvania 292

9 SOPHIE GRUETERICH,

10 Resident of Pennsylvania 295

11 SUSAN EDWARDS,

12 Resident of Pennsylvania 299

13 ZACHARY GORDON

14 Resident of Pennsylvania 305

15 PAUL LUBOLD,

16 Resident of Pennsylvania 307

17 THEODORE ROBINSON,

18 Citizen Power 313

19 JOANNE KILGOUR,

20 Sierra Club 316

21 KIMBERLY GLAS,

22 Blue Green Alliance 320

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1 C O N T E N T S (continued)

2 PAGE

3 KAREN MELTON,

4 Chester County Citizens for Climate

5 Protection 326

6 DIANA AIMES 330

7 MELANIE MCCOY,

8 Michigan Municipal Electrical Association 334

9 VERONICA COPTIS,

10 Center for Coal Field Justice 340

11 DAVID MOSCATELLO,

12 Sierra Club 343

13 SETH LONG,

14 Resident of Maine 348

15 SHARON PILLAR,

16 Solar Unified Network of Western 

17 Pennsylvania 352

18 LEA GEISSE,

19 Blue Green Alliance 356

20 DOUGLAS SHIELDS,

21 Resident of Pennsylvania 359

22

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1 C O N T E N T S (continued)

2 PAGE 

3 VERNON HALTOM,

4 Coal River Mountain Watch 371

5 PAULA SWEARENGIN,

6 Resident of West Virginia 376

7 DENNIS GROCE,

8 Resident of Pennsylvania 378

9 MIRIAM LINDAUER,

10 Resident of Pennsylvania 382

11 ALEXANDRA SCHMITTLEIN,

12 Resident of Massachusetts 387

13 SUSAN HOPPE,

14 Resident of Michigan 389

15 MICHAEL MABRY 393

16 KEVIN SUNDAY,

17 Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and

18 Industry 395

19 WANDA GUTHRIE,

20 Thomas Burton Center 400

21 DAVID MANGOLD,

22 Resident of Ohio 404

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1 C O N T E N T S (continued)

2 PAGE

3 PAUL SEVERANCE,

4 Resident of Indiana 406

5 NIKKI LUKE,

6 Resident of West Virginia 409

7 NICK KENNEDY,

8 Mountain Watershed Association 413

9 CHRIS WEST,

10 Resident of Pennsylvania 418

11 RACHEL MARTIN GOLDMAN,

12 Resident of Pennsylvania 420

13 PHIL SMITH,

14 United Mine Workers of America 425

15 IAN SMITH,

16 Resident of Pennsylvania 430

17 NAOMI SWERDLOW,

18 Resident of Iowa 435

19 RAYMOND VENTRONE,

20 Boiler Maker 154 440

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1 P R O C E E D I N G S

2 MR. WAYLAND: We are awaiting the arrival 

3 of the Regional Administrator from Region 3 who 

4 will be here shortly, so we will begin the 

5 hearing momentarily. Thank you.

6 Good morning, everyone. My name is Bob 

7 Wayland. I’m the leader of the Energy Strategies 

8 Group for the EPA office in Research Triangle 

9 Park, North Carolina. I’m one of the Chairs of

10 today’s Public Hearing, and I would like to 

11 personally thank each of you for taking time out 

12 of your day to be here this morning.

13 Joining me on the panel this morning to 

14 my immediate right is William Niebling from OAR’s 

15 immediate office. Next to him is Debra Dalcher 

16 from the RTP office where I’m from. And then 

17 later this afternoon we will be joined on the 

18 panel by Jeremy Mark, who is coming from our 

19 Office of Atmospheric Programs in Washington, DC.

20 We are here today to listen to your 

21 comments on the two proposed rules to reduce 

22 carbon pollution from power plants. EPA 

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1 announced both of these rules, proposed rules, on 

2 June 2nd, 2014.

3 Power plants are the largest source of 

4 carbon pollution in the United States, accounting 

5 for roughly one-third of all domestic greenhouse 

6 gas emissions.

7 The first rule is EPA Proposed Clean 

8 Power Plan for Existing Power Plants. This 

9 proposal consists of two main parts, state 

10 specific goals to lower carbon pollution from 

11 their power plants and guidelines to help states 

12 develop their plans for meeting these goals.

13 This proposal gives states flexibility in 

14 determining how to meet these goals. States will 

15 choose what goes into their plans that show how 

16 they will achieve the needed reductions in 

17 greenhouse gases and meet their goals by 2030.

18 The second rule is EPA’s proposed rule, 

19 to address carbon dioxide emissions from modified 

20 and reconstructed power plants. This rule would 

21 set emission limits for two groups of power 

22 plants. 

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1 First, those that make physical 

2 operational changes that increase the plant’s 

3 maximum achievable hourly rate of emissions, and 

4 those that replace components to such an extent 

5 that the new components exceed fifty percent of 

6 the capital cost of an entirely new comparable 

7 power plant.

8 If you would like more details on either 

9 of these proposed rules, there are fact sheets 

10 available near the registration desk on the first 

11 floor, and there is some information here on 

12 tables in the back of the room as well.

13 Today’s hearing is only one of four 

14 public hearings across the country this week on 

15 these two proposed rules. We have had a 

16 tremendous interest in each of these hearings and 

17 I’d like to thank you for taking time out of your 

18 day today to join us and share your comments with 

19 us and the American people.

20 We have a lot of people signed up to 

21 speak today and we want to hear from all of you. 

22 So before we get starting I’d like to go through 

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1 a few housekeeping items and ground rules that 

2 will help make today’s hearing run smoothly.

3 First, please be sure that you have 

4 checked in at the registration desk downstairs. 

5 Even if you are not planning to speak today, 

6 please make sure that you’ve registered 

7 downstairs for the record.

8 And if you signed up to speak online or 

9 by phone, but haven’t told us that you’re here, 

10 please step out to the registration desk and let 

11 the EPA staff there know you’re here so that we 

12 can get you properly scheduled into a time slot.

13 Second, this is important, if you are a 

14 speaker, you were given a room letter when 

15 checked in. There is Room A and Room B. This is 

16 Room A, so if you’re in Room B, you need to leave 

17 and go up to the fifteenth floor to find the 

18 right room. And this is a good time to switch if 

19 you need to do that.

20 Okay, I’m going to go through just a few 

21 ground rules about how we’re going to work today. 

22 I’m going to call the speakers up in pairs to the 

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1 table here. When your name is called, if you 

2 would please come to the front and sit at these 

3 two chairs two at a time, it will facilitate the 

4 flow of speakers throughout the day.

5 This is important for the record. When I 

6 call on you to speak, please state your name 

7 clearly into the microphone and spell your last 

8 name so that the court reporter can accurately 

9 reflect that in the record.

10 Each speaker will have five minutes to 

11 give their comments. We have a light to help you 

12 know how much time you have left to speak. The 

13 light is over here to my left, and when the light 

14 turns from green to yellow, that means you have a 

15 minute remaining. When it turns red, that’s the 

16 signal that your five minutes is up.

17 The light will flash red and beep when 

18 you have spoken the five minutes and it’s time to 

19 stop. I’m going to try to be as polite as 

20 possible today. I don’t want to cut anybody off 

21 in mid-sentence, but we do have a full agenda 

22 running into the evening tonight, so if you could 

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1 please try to stick to the five minute period, 

2 that would be very helpful.

3 When you are finished speaking, please 

4 remain at the table until your colleague has 

5 finished speaking, and then you can leave 

6 together and I will call the next two speakers. 

7 We’re here today to listen. However, 

8 anyone on the panel may ask you clarifying 

9 questions at the end of your testimony. I will 

10 then call the next speakers and so on and so on.

11 If you have brought written copy of your 

12 testimony, please leave that here on the table 

13 when you’re done, and it will help us ensure that 

14 your comments are adequately reflected in the 

15 transcript that’s being developed for this 

16 hearing today.

17 Because of the large number of people who 

18 have signed up to speak today, and for us to be 

19 fair to each of you, we’re going to have to 

20 strictly enforce the five-minute limit.

21 If you have additional comments you would 

22 like to make, you can submit them in writing to 

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1 the docket or leave them here at the table and we 

2 will incorporate them in the record.

3 Let me assure each of you that EPA gives 

4 just as much consideration to comments we receive 

5 in writing as we do to comments that we receive 

6 at a public hearing like this. So if you have 

7 more that you would like to say beyond the five 

8 minutes, please submit it. Your comments will be 

9 reviewed and taken under consideration.

10 There is still plenty of time to get 

11 written comments in, and there are comment cards 

12 available here at the registration desk. 

13 Comments must be received by October 16th, 2014 

14 at midnight. We will put any written comments 

15 submitted today in the official Air Docket for 

16 this proposed rule. Instructions for submitting 

17 written comments in other ways are available at 

18 the materials near the registration desk and in 

19 the back of this room.

20 We are scheduled to go until eight 

21 o’clock tonight. We will take short breaks 

22 throughout the day as needed. There is a lunch 

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1 break mid-day, and there’s a dinner break, I 

2 think it’s a five o’clock, from five to six, and 

3 then we will convene at eight. We will remain 

4 here as long as necessary tonight, permitted with 

5 the building staff, to hear anyone who might come 

6 in for that late evening session.

7 If you have any questions during the day, 

8 please see the staff at the registration desk and 

9 someone will try to help you.

10 Finally, I want to ask each of you to 

11 please be respectful of everyone who speaks 

12 today. We have people with a wide variety of 

13 views in the audience and we want to hear from 

14 all of you. 

15 So that we can do that, and to be fair to 

16 everyone, we ask that everyone listen quietly. 

17 Even applause can slow things down and eat into 

18 people’s speaking time, and we want to hear from 

19 everyone who has signed up to speak.

20 Thank you, again, for taking the time 

21 today to share your comments on EPA’s proposed 

22 rules, and as soon as Regional Administrator 

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1 Garvin gets here, we will call the first 

2 speakers. He would like to make some initial 

3 preliminary opening remarks. So at this time 

4 we’ll adjourn the hearing until he arrives to 

5 make his opening remarks. Thank you. 

6 [Recess from 9:06 to 9:11 a.m.]

7 MR. WAYLAND: Good morning. We’ll call 

8 the hearing back to order, and at this time I’d 

9 like to turn the floor over to Regional 

10 Administrator, Shawn Garvin.

11 MR. GARVIN: Thank you, Bob. Good 

12 morning everyone and thank you for joining us 

13 today as part of this national effort of 

14 obtaining comments on EPA’s Clean Air Act 

15 Proposal to limit carbon emission from power 

16 plants.

17 This is the fourth public hearing that 

18 EPA has held on this proposal. Earlier this 

19 week, EPA held three separate public hearings in 

20 Atlanta, Denver and Washington, DC. 

21 Since the Clean Power Plant announcement 

22 in early June, EPA has received a tremendous 

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1 amount of feedback. Recognizing this interest, 

2 we added a second day of public hearings in each 

3 location. 

4 Since last September, prior to ever 

5 putting pen to paper, EPA collected extensive 

6 public input, including eleven public listening 

7 sessions and meetings with over 300 groups from 

8 across the country.

9 This input has helped guide development 

10 of the Clean Power Plan. What we heard helped 

11 shape the guiding principles of our proposal. We 

12 heard that flexibility is key, so we maximized 

13 choices states could make for themselves.

14 We heard that States could cut pollution 

15 cost effectively by looking at the energy system 

16 as a whole, so we built that in. 

17 We heard the power sectors interconnected 

18 and not bound by state lines, so we allowed 

19 states to work together or go it alone, whatever 

20 works best for them.

21 The public comment period is 

22 incredibility valuable to us. We met with 60 

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1 different groups in just the first 25 business 

2 days after our proposal. As for the beginning of 

3 this week, we received more than 300,000 comments 

4 and expect many more. We want no stone unturned 

5 and no good idea off the table.

6 We expect great feedback at these 

7 sessions. These are a critical opportunity for 

8 people to speak to their government directly. 

9 But let me make, also, very clear, any comment we 

10 receive by October 16th will be equally accepted 

11 and analyzed. There are no special comments or 

12 special groups.

13 We look at everything carefully, and EPA 

14 does the work to shape that into a rule we all 

15 can be proud of. We know the purpose of this 

16 rule couldn’t be more important, and that’s why 

17 we’re putting so much importance on the process 

18 and the comments we are getting are going to help 

19 us get this rule right.

20 Science tells us that climate change is 

21 real, that human activities are fueling that 

22 change, and that we must act now to avoid those 

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1 devastating consequences. 

2 In June, 2013, Preside Obama announced 

3 his Climate Action Plan, calling on agencies 

4 across the federal government, including EPA, to 

5 take action to cut carbon pollution, to protect 

6 our country from the impacts of climate change 

7 and to lead the world in this effort.

8 The President directed EPA, quote, “to 

9 work expeditiously to complete carbon pollution 

10 standards for both new and existing power 

11 plants,” end quote, because currently no federal 

12 standards exist for carbon pollution from the 

13 country’s largest source. 

14 In September, 2013, EPA announced it was 

15 setting standards for carbon pollution emitted by 

16 new power plants to ensure that power companies 

17 investing in new fossil fuel fired power plants 

18 will use modern technologies, limiting emissions 

19 of harmful carbon pollution.

20 Last month EPA proposed carbon pollution 

21 guidelines for existing power plants. These 

22 guidelines are required by the Clean Air Act to 

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1 develop and implement programs for reducing 

2 carbon pollution from the power plants operating 

3 in each state.

4 EPA’s mandate is to deliver clean air, 

5 clean water, and safe and healthy lands to 

6 American families. We’ve done this for more than 

7 four decades. We’ve done it by relying on the 

8 best available science, being transparent in our 

9 decision making, and working with everyone to 

10 develop commonsense approaches to protecting and 

11 improving the environment across the country.

12 Now before I turn things back over to Bob 

13 to give you more details about the logistics and 

14 procedures for today’s hearings, let me conclude 

15 with these final thoughts. We know we don’t have 

16 to sacrifice a healthy economy for a healthy 

17 environment. History shows us that since EPA has 

18 existed, we’ve cut air pollution by more than 70 

19 percent, while the gross domestic product has 

20 tripled.

21 We know that climate change can’t be 

22 solved overnight. It’s going to take broad, 

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1 concerted efforts from all levels of government, 

2 industry, NGOs, utilities, the public, and the 

3 international community.

4 We know that climate change is already 

5 presenting very real risks to our health, our 

6 economy, and our way of life, and we cannot 

7 afford further delay. People from all sectors of 

8 the economy and all walks of life are calling for 

9 climate action because our moral obligation is 

10 clear. We all want to make sure the world we 

11 leave our children is clean, safe, and as healthy 

12 as possible. That’s what our proposal is 

13 designed to do.

14 I want to thank you all for being here 

15 today, and we look forward to hearing your 

16 comments. And with that, I’ll turn it back over 

17 to Bob.

18 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you, Shawn. And no, 

19 I’m not going to read the opening statement 

20 again, so you don’t have to worry about that. 

21 Thank you very much for taking time to be 

22 here with us today and to put your stamp of 

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1 approval on what we are doing here today. 

2 And with that, I’d like to call the first 

3 two speakers to the chairs up here, Patricia 

4 DeMarco and Vincent Brisini.

5 MS. DEMARCO: My name is Patricia 

6 DeMarco, D-e-M-a-r-c-o. I am a resident of

7 Pittsburgh, PA, retired utility executive and 

8 Commissioner of the Regulated Utilities of 

9 Alaska, currently a professor at Carnegie Mellon 

10 University in the Green Sciences Institute.

11 I thank you for pursuing this important 

12 rulemaking initiative. We are facing the 

13 definitive challenge of our time, the need to 

14 shift from a fossil fueled economy to a renewable 

15 and a sustainable economy within decades.

16 I stand to speak for the countless 

17 constituents who will not be heard in these 

18 proceedings, the unborn generations whose fate 

19 will be determined by our actions, but who have 

20 no voice in the decisions that will shape their 

21 future.

22 Our fossil fueled energy system is by far 

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1 the largest contributor to carbon dioxide 

2 emissions that are causing climate changes. And

3 the transition from a fossil fueled economy to a 

4 renewable energy powered economy is the surest 

5 way to abate the more serious effects of climate 

6 changing, gas emissions, and will preserve the 

7 land from more and more evasive and destructive 

8 methods of extraction of fossil fuels.

9 A change from an energy system that’s 

10 entrenched for 200 years seems a daunting task. 

11 But the consequences of continuing this pattern 

12 of burning the fossil legacy that created the 

13 oxygen we depend on are too devastating to think 

14 of. We must make better choices that lead to a 

15 stable economy based on a sustainable energy 

16 system.

17 These are not primarily choices about 

18 technology, they’re a question of our values. It 

19 is an ethical decision to whether we leave our 

20 children a living earth or an earth that has been 

21 devastated by the effects of combustion of fossil 

22 fuels.

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1 I support the actions expressed in this 

2 regulation to directly confront the major cause 

3 of combustion that are contributing to climate 

4 change. The existing fossil fueled electric 

5 generating system is the major cause, and it only 

6 converts 30 percent of the fossil fuel that’s 

7 burned into usable electricity. 66 is lost as 

8 waste heat. 

9 This technology has been in place since 

10 the 1800's, and it’s time to look at a more 

11 efficient and more effective way to generate 

12 electricity. 

13 The approach that is presented in this 

14 rulemaking addresses the need for just and 

15 reasonable outcomes for the industry affected, as 

16 well as for the consumers and the general public 

17 interest. The benefits that are outlined in your 

18 regulation show 46 to 82 billion dollars of 

19 benefit, well over the 51⁄2 to 7.3 billion dollars 

20 in expected cost of implementation. There is no 

21 reason not to proceed aggressively on 

22 implementing this process.

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1 Regarding the state plans and goals, the 

2 energy system in this country moved to a market 

3 based policy in the Energy Policy Act of 1992, 

4 with the restructuring of the energy industry. 

5 However, the market signals that reach consumers 

6 at the point of purchase are heavily skewed by 

7 industry’s subsidies, 7.2 billion to fossil fuel 

8 industries, and only 400 million in the renewable 

9 and non-combustion industries.

10 The ability for consumers to make 

11 unbiased choices has been weighted mightily by 

12 this tradition pattern of action. Having 

13 explicit recognition of the benefits of abating 

14 carbon combustion is helpful in giving consumers 

15 better signals.

16 I am filing comments in writing to 

17 elaborate on some of these issues, but I want to 

18 mention that it is important that the public 

19 receive effective information about the 

20 importance of this task. We are sixteenth --

21 fifteenth out of sixteen nations, industrial 

22 nations, in the practice of energy efficiency in 

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1 this country. We are double the per capital of 

2 carbon emissions in this country compared to 

3 Europe, which is certainly a highly developed 

4 country. 

5 We must abate demand as well as look at 

6 the generation process. If we fully implement 

7 the potential for energy efficiency and 

8 conversation by individual actions, the reduction 

9 of carbon combustion from generating units will 

10 not be a burden to the economy but a benefit. 

11 Thank you.

12 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much. Does 

13 anyone on the panel have a question of Ms. 

14 DeMarco? Thank you.

15 MR. BRISINI: Good morning. I am Vince 

16 Brisini, B-r-i-s-i-n-i, Deputy Secretary for the 

17 Office of Waste, Air, Radiation, and Remediation 

18 in Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental 

19 Protection.

20 Thank you for the opportunity to testify 

21 on EPA’s Proposed Clean Power Plan Rule. The EPA 

22 has proposed emissions guidelines for reducing 

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1 carbon dioxide emissions from existing fossil 

2 fuel fired electric generating units.

3 The overall national target is quantified 

4 for each state based on their 2012 emission 

5 intensity rather than the publicized 2005 levels.

6 EPA determined each individual state’s 

7 emission reduction target using 2012 data for 

8 building blocks, with most measures to be taken 

9 outside the fence line of affected units. These 

10 measures are largely directing power generation 

11 from coal fired electric generating units to 

12 other non-affected units in actions.

13 Pennsylvania recognizes EPA’s limited 

14 authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions 

15 under the Clean Air Act. Our concern to relate 

16 to establishing carbon dioxide reduction targets 

17 under Section 111(d) that forced the development 

18 of a State energy plan. Simply stated, 

19 Pennsylvania believes the 111(d) state plan 

20 should not be the state energy plan, rather the 

21 111(d) plan should be part of the state energy 

22 plan.

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1 Pennsylvania has developed a White Paper 

2 recommending a framework for the Section 111(d) 

3 guidelines. The White Paper was sent to EPA 

4 Administrator, Gina McCarthy, on April 10th, 

5 2014. In that paper we recommended EPA 

6 established emission guideline targets based upon 

7 actions that can be taken directly at the 

8 existing fossil fuel fired electric generating 

9 units.

10 This is consistent with previous 

11 emissions guidelines promulgated under the Clean 

12 Air Act by EPA for other source categories. 

13 Consequently, EPA should limit its definition of 

14 best system of emission reduction to actions that 

15 can be taken directly at the affected existing 

16 fossil fuel fired electric generating units 

17 without redefining the source.

18 That interpretation is consistent with 

19 how the U.S. Supreme Court recently viewed best 

20 available control technology in the UARG versus 

21 EPA case which overturned EPA’s tailoring rule.

22 The Court found that EPA guidance 

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1 acknowledged the best available control 

2 technology may not be used to require reductions 

3 in a facility’s demand for energy from the 

4 electric grid, which is the basis for the vast 

5 majority of emissions reductions targets in the 

6 proposed emissions guideline.

7 We believe EPA needs to carefully weigh 

8 its proposed interpretation of best system of 

9 emissions reductions as it would establish 

10 precedent for environmental regulation. 

11 As proposed, however, the guidelines 

12 would allow environmental regulatory agencies to 

13 establish programs that are more related to 

14 achieving desired social and economic outcomes 

15 rather than developing and implementing 

16 performance standard to achieve emission 

17 reductions. 

18 Pennsylvania believes these types of 

19 social and economic decisions should be made by 

20 elected officials. The EPA has stated repeatedly 

21 that there is built in flexibility in the 

22 proposed Clean Power Plan rule.

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1 Pennsylvania, however, is concerned that 

2 any purported flexibility is illusory and asks 

3 how flexibility can be achieved when EPA has 

4 already demonstrated that Pennsylvania will need 

5 to use all four building blocks to achieve an 

6 overall 31 percent reduction from 2012 emissions 

7 level.

8 From a practical standpoint, when EPA 

9 used all available measures to establish emission 

10 reduction targets that are so far beyond the 

11 reductions that can be achieved by existing 

12 fossil fuel fired electric generating units, the 

13 states have no other option than to use those 

14 same measures in a development of the State 

15 Energy Plan that would be required under the 

16 proposed section 111(d) program.

17 Importantly, Pennsylvania does not 

18 believe that an environmental agency should 

19 regulate or influence energy markets, or that 

20 energy markets should be in the business of 

21 environmental regulation.

22 Pennsylvania appreciates the opportunity 

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1 to testify on the proposed Clean Power Plan Rule. 

2 Our White Paper demonstrates that Pennsylvania 

3 does support efforts to reduce carbon dioxide 

4 emissions. We believe, however, that it must be 

5 done in a lawful manner that results in cleaner 

6 air, more jobs and lower energy prices. 

7 By unleashing efficiency improvements, 

8 emissions reductions at the affected and other 

9 industrial sources will continue so long as a 

10 competitive marketplace continues to exist.

11 My request to you include my detailed 

12 written testimony in the record. Also, I would 

13 like to enter into the record a copy of the 

14 Pennsylvania White Paper, the fact sheet and the 

15 PowerPoint slides from my testimony before the 

16 Pennsylvania Senate Environmental Resources and 

17 Energy Committee on June 27, 2014. 

18 Once again, thank you for providing the 

19 opportunity for Pennsylvania to testify on the 

20 proposed Clean Power Plan Rule. We will submit 

21 detailed comments on the proposed rule to EPA in 

22 October, 2014.

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1 MR. WAYLAND: Thanks, Vince. Any 

2 questions? No? Thank you.

3 And if you have written stuff you want to 

4 leave with us, you can leave it here and we will 

5 get it downstairs. Thank you.

6 Our next two speakers will be Michael 

7 Moffett and Nate Natale.

8 MR. NATALE: Good morning. My name is 

9 Nate Natalie, N-a-t-a-l-e, and I am 

10 Vice-President of Operations for the Home 

11 Performance Coalition, a non-profit 501(c)(3), 

12 that advances policy change through policymaker 

13 education, stakeholder engagement and research.

14 Thank you for the opportunity to testify 

15 today. First we applaud the administration for 

16 this important effort to regulate carbon 

17 emissions, and for the recognition in the rule 

18 that energy efficiency should be part of the 

19 answer to carbon reductions.

20 We believe Home Performance meets the 

21 BSER test and is a crucial part of building block 

22 number four in the proposed rule. 

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1 In fact, with more than 113 million 

2 residences consuming 22 percent of all U.S. 

3 energy, this sector is critical for any program 

4 that targets emission reductions.

5 We are here today to offer suggestions 

6 for improvement to the draft regulations and will 

7 provide further details in our October 16th 

8 comments.

9 We urge EPA to consider allowing states 

10 to account for natural gas savings and energy 

11 efficiency programs. While we recognize, that 

12 offsets are not allowed by the Clean Air Act, we 

13 urge EPA to recognize the unintended consequences 

14 that could be associated with fuel switching and 

15 the carbon that would not be captured and 

16 measured, as well as the inefficiencies in 

17 delivery of energy efficiency services that may 

18 come by excluding efficiency gains from gas and 

19 other heating fuels under the rule.

20 For example, in the residential sector, 

21 current home performance programs that aim to 

22 reduce the overall energy use of a home may 

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1 instead be encouraged by the rule to switch from 

2 electric to natural gas heating without ensuring 

3 that this effort is coupled with air sealing and 

4 insulation. Unless the home is well insulated, 

5 the opportunity to achieve potential savings will 

6 be lost. 

7 Further, the carbon emitted from the 

8 natural gas heater will not be measured. We 

9 recommend that EPA offer states best practices 

10 for ensuring that energy savings is maximized in 

11 residual programs.

12 Please know that not all energy 

13 efficiency programs are created equal. Today 

14 ratepayer funded programs are usually required to 

15 pass a cost effectiveness test. Despite recent

16 updates, these tests are often implemented in 

17 ways that are biased against deeper energy 

18 efficiency investments because they account for 

19 all costs, but frequently ignore many of the 

20 benefits.

21 A new screening effort developed by the 

22 Home Performance Coalition called the Resource 

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1 Value Framework provides a powerful tool for 

2 public utility commissions to ensure that their 

3 cost effectiveness tests are balanced, 

4 transparent, and account for public policy goals.

5 We urge EPA to recommend the use of the 

6 RVF to states that wish to test their 111(d) 

7 compliance programs for cost effectiveness in 

8 order to encourage deeper savings opportunities.

9 Home Performance Programs have many 

10 different designs as noted in the proposed rule, 

11 and there are best practices that we urge EPA to 

12 include in its guidance to states that are 

13 developing their implementation plans. 

14 We urge the EPA to consider that there 

15 are new technologies emerging every day in the 

16 marketplace that can assist with program design 

17 and carbon measurement, such as smart meters, 

18 home energy management devices, advanced 

19 thermostat and smartphone applications.

20 We are at a turning point for new energy 

21 technology and data analytics, and we strongly 

22 recommend the EPA recognize this nascent 

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1 revolution and ensure that the regulation not 

2 close the door to new technologies and program 

3 designs to encourage innovation.

4 As EPA develops its rules for evaluation, 

5 measurement, and verification, we urge the 

6 consideration of energy consumption data as 

7 provided by utilities. This data in the form of 

8 traditional utilities bills and more advanced 

9 technology such as smart devices, can provide 

10 valuable information about energy use and 

11 contribute to accurate quantification of savings.

12 This information should be recognized and 

13 considered for use in the EMV protocols. 

14 However, protocols and policies to allow for both 

15 data access and analysis may take time to 

16 develop. 

17 We encourage the EPA to include the use 

18 of this data in its EMV rules.

19 And finally, we ask EPA to consider the 

20 non-ratepayer funded solutions to energy savings 

21 in the private sector, and to encourage 

22 aggregation and the development of a registry to 

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1 register and retire emissions so private 

2 contractors and companies can provide from 

3 electricity reduction outside the utility 

4 programs.

5 I’d like to thank you on behalf of the 

6 Home Performance Coalition for the opportunity to 

7 testify today, and ask that you please ensure 

8 that continued attention is paid to the only 

9 element of the rule that directly impacts and 

10 includes small business and average Americans, 

11 and that’s the energy reductions in the 

12 residential sector. Thank you.

13 MR. WAYLAND: Thanks. Questions? 

14 I had one question. I presume the 

15 reductions you’re referring to would be part of 

16 the building block four piece, the demand side 

17 reduction aspect of --

18 MR. NATALE: Correct.

19 MR. WAYLAND: Okay. Thank you.

20 Michael?

21 MR. MOFFETT: Good morning. My name is 

22 Michael Moffett, and I, as a West Virginian, has 

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1 decided to step up and serve as a member of the 

2 West Virginia House of Delegates, a position I’m 

3 currently a candidate for. But let me be clear, 

4 this is not a campaign stop, nor is it a box I’m 

5 looking to check.

6 I come before you this morning because on 

7 June 2nd, when I began to read the proposal, I 

8 saw that you were looking to have comments from 

9 the public, and I knew that I had to do all that 

10 I could to come up and speak.

11 Let me start with a few words from a 

12 Protestant pastor from 1946, who, himself, had 

13 the revelation that his government that he had 

14 supported was wrong. He was locked up for seven 

15 years for preaching this.

16 First, it came from the socialist, and I 

17 did not speak out because I was not a socialist.

18 Then they came from the trade unionist, 

19 and I did not speak out because I was not a trade 

20 unionist. 

21 Then they came from the Jews and I did 

22 not speak out because I was not a Jews.

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1 Then they came from me and there was no 

2 one left to speak for me. I’m not a power plant 

3 owner. I do not work at a power plant. I am not 

4 an owner of a coal mine and I do not work at a 

5 coal mine.

6 I am someone that enjoys being able to 

7 flip the switch and know that my lights come on, 

8 someone that appreciates the heat in the winter, 

9 someone who enjoys a little cooling in the 

10 summer.

11 In the 1970's many of our government 

12 agencies warned of the impending Ice Age. Global 

13 cooling was predicted by NASA, the National 

14 Academy of Science, by college professors, and by 

15 researchers.

16 When I was slightly older than my son, 

17 who is here with me, we had a president that took 

18 office and right from the get-go he started 

19 talking about using executive orders about his 

20 energy plan, his energy policy that encouraged 

21 everyone to set their winter thermostat at 55 

22 degrees overnight and 65 degrees during the day. 

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1 It was a policy of conservation, one that 

2 addressed concerns of not having enough power for 

3 this great nation. 

4 Conservation is a good thing. We have 

5 learned that to be better environmental stewards, 

6 reduce, reuse, recycle is not common vernacular 

7 in the U.S., and we no longer had smog and the 

8 acid rain that were common not too many years 

9 ago.

10 The Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act of 

11 the 1970's have had some positive results. Our 

12 airs and our waters are cleaner. But now we are 

13 going too far. 

14 At home we are blessed to have an amazing 

15 power plant, AEP’s John Amos Coal Fired Power 

16 Plant. AEP spent two billion dollars to install 

17 well established scrubber technology to reduce 

18 sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide. 

19 I had the privilege to hear from them a 

20 few weeks ago in connection with our Putnam 

21 County Chamber of Commerce Leadership Program. 

22 They are proud of the work that they have done. 

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1 They are also aware of the potential power 

2 shortages that are looming as we take more coal 

3 fired power plants off line.

4 The MAT standards on mercury under the 

5 utility MATS are about to take effect in April, 

6 2015. They will reduce the power generating 

7 capacities of the U.S. by 34.7 gigawatts, or nine 

8 percent of our annual usage, which may result in 

9 anticipated brown outs during the hottest summer 

10 days and the coldest winter nights. The EPA only 

11 anticipated that to be a 9.5 gigawatt loss, an 

12 estimated cost of 9.6 billion per year.

13 Speaking of cost, the increased cost to 

14 produce power has led to increases of three 

15 percent in 2013 and 2014, and 27 percent since 

16 2001, hitting our hardest working families and 

17 fixed income seniors. 

18

19 Focusing on these new CO2 regulations, we 

20 expect to see 30 to 60 of our power plants close. 

21 According to the Department of Energy’s Deputy 

22 Assistant Secretary for Clean Coal, the cost of 

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1 these new regulations would be a 70 or 80 percent 

2 increase on wholesale electricity prices. Some 

3 of our banks are estimating that could really be 

4 up to a 300 increase.

5 The cost will come in brown outs and 

6 black outs that occur because we won’t have coal 

7 fired plants to turn back on.

8 We cannot afford to eliminate our most 

9 reliable and most cost effective energy source 

10 for the supposed hundredths of a degree that this 

11 may affect in climate. 

12 Coal is West Virginia. Yes, it is a 

13 marketing theme that is heard regularly, but I 

14 know that it is more than just some clever 

15 jingle. Coal really impacts every single one of 

16 the 1.8 million residents of our great state. 

17 Every county benefits from the severance tax that 

18 is placed on coal, and the money goes to all 

19 sorts of projects that their county commissions 

20 deem appropriate.

21 I must point out that it is noticed that 

22 these hearings today are far enough from the 

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1 southern coal fields to make it impossible for 

2 the nearly 5,000 people that work directly in the 

3 industry in three of my four counties of Boone, 

4 Lincoln and Logan, to make it here to speak, and 

5 for those that make a living and industries that 

6 prosper off of those hard working miners to come 

7 here to speak.

8 I come here today for those that cannot. 

9 Coal has built this country that many of us love. 

10 Coal from our land that created the steel that 

11 has built so many great things in this nation. 

12 It has built this, the steel city. Coal has 

13 given us relatively inexpensive energy for years, 

14 and it must be a part of our future.

15 The efforts in clean coal have created a 

16 number of technological advances that make it a 

17 viable source to continue to be our leading 

18 energy producer while other technologies become 

19 more cost efficient. We have coal seams in this 

20 country, alone, that will power us for 250 years. 

21 This move by the EPA and this 

22 Administration price it out of existence makes no 

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1 sense to me. The carbon catcher technology is 

2 not ready for use. It is not efficient. It is 

3 costly. I know the Bill lists all sorts of cost 

4 benefits, but in speaking to those that actually 

5 create our power, it has been researched and it 

6 is not there yet.

7 So despite our present action plan, this 

8 EPA or congress must act to reign in this 

9 overreach and the overreach, one that we are now 

10 seeing in the Clean Water Act as well.

11 The world is adding coal fired power 

12 plants without emission controls every week, and 

13 some of our EU partners are switching back to 

14 coal.

15 I’m here to speak because we continue to 

16 use coal to power our country, and this Bill will 

17 make that impractical and nearly impossible. I 

18 speak out for the coal miner and the coal 

19 industry. Thank you for your time.

20 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you. Questions? 

21 Thank you very much.

22 Our next two speakers this morning will 

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1 be Natalie Tennant and Doris Simmers. 

2 Oh, I’m sorry, Dennis, Dennis Simmers. 

3 Welcome, Madame Secretary.

4 MS. TENNANT: Well, good morning. I am 

5 West Virginia’s Secretary of State, Natalie 

6 Tennant, and I appreciate the opportunity to be 

7 here. Thank you, Mr. Garvin and Mr. Wayland, 

8 everyone on today’s panel as well. 

9 And thank you to the United Mine Workers 

10 of America who are here today, and who are 

11 preparing to march outside, and who work hard to 

12 keep the lights on in rooms like this every day. 

13 Thank you for being here. Thank you.

14 A couple of months ago, panelist, I 

15 visited McBride Electrical in Welch, West 

16 Virginia. Harold McBride and I were talking and 

17 I ask him how would his business be impacted by 

18 the regulations on coal fired power plants. 

19 Harold looked around the room, and he looked at 

20 the workers in that room, and he said most of 

21 these guys would be sent home. 

22 And that’s why I’m here today. I’m here

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1 to speak on behalf of Harold, his workers and 

2 their families, and all the families all across 

3 West Virginia, and America who depend on coal. 

4 Folks like Mike Peyton and Levi Allen who are 

5 outside. 

6 Mike works at a Marion County coal mine 

7 and his paycheck puts food on the table for his 

8 wife, Amber, and their three children.

9 Levi works at a Marshall County coal 

10 mine. He and his wife, Shannon, are raising five 

11 children. The two youngest are twins.

12 I’m also here for Don McKettic 

13 (phonetic). Don and his wife, Donna, are from my 

14 hometown in Fairview, West Virginia and I know 

15 them well. Don retired after more than forty 

16 years in the coal mines, and at age 81, he is 

17 here right now because he knows if miners keep 

18 losing their jobs that they won’t be able --

19 there won’t be any retirement left for folks like 

20 him who have literally given their knees, their 

21 backs and their shoulders to power America.

22 As I was preparing to testify today, I 

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1 was looking through statistics, and figures, and 

2 facts, and it all occurred to me that you all 

3 don’t need any more numbers. You are the 

4 experts. But what you don’t seem to understand 

5 is that those numbers represent people. People 

6 with mortgages to pay and families to feed.

7 And that’s why it’s so wrong that West 

8 Virginians like Mike, Levi, Don, had to travel 

9 all the way to Pittsburgh just to be heard. You 

10 know we are less than a hundred miles from West 

11 Virginia, and after everything our coal miners 

12 have given America, you could not make the 

13 slightest bit of extra effort to cross the 

14 border.

15 A year ago, almost to the day, I sat 

16 across the table from Administrator Gina 

17 McCarthy. I looked her in the eyes and I asked 

18 her to come to West Virginia. I asked her to 

19 hear our stories, to drive our roads, but 

20 instead, here we are. The White House and the 

21 EPA have chosen to snub West Virginia, but West 

22 Virginians will not be ignored. 

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1 Whether this Administration chooses to 

2 recognize it or not, the fact still remains that 

3 coal is nearly 40 percent of our electricity in 

4 this country and it’s not going anywhere. And 

5 trying to squeeze coal out of the energy equation 

6 is not only unrealistic, but it’s also dangerous 

7 and irresponsible.

8 There is no reason to pit clean air 

9 against good paying jobs. West Virginia can lead 

10 the country in developing coal technology that 

11 supports both. And I’ve seen it firsthand, and 

12 I’m happy to tell you about it in further detail 

13 after this. I’ve seen it firsthand at the 

14 National Research Center for Coal and Energy at 

15 West Virginia University, or at the National 

16 Energy Technology Lab in Morgantown.

17 Now studies show that costs of addressing 

18 climate change would double without advanced coal 

19 technology. Carbon capture and storage simply 

20 must be part of the equation.

21 This Administration has dropped the ball 

22 when it comes to making the necessary investments 

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1 to bring CCS technology to market, and these 

2 revelations threaten to derail the 

3 commercialization of CCS altogether.

4 We know that advanced technology is 

5 imperative, but the Department of Energy is only 

6 investing a fraction of what it spends on 

7 research and development in renewable energy and 

8 energy efficiency on CCS.

9 Now don’t get me wrong, energy efficiency 

10 and renewable energy development are worthy 

11 investments, but we cannot afford to leave coal 

12 out of the equation. And I challenge this 

13 Administration today to commit to building or 

14 retrofitting coal fired power plants across the 

15 country with CCS technology. 

16 And there is money. There is eight 

17 billion dollars sitting around unused as part of 

18 the Department of Energy Loan Guarantee Program 

19 already intended for CCS development. Instead of 

20 letting that money go to waste, use it to power 

21 this bold new initiative. We cannot afford to 

22 make -- we can, I should say -- we can afford to 

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1 make CCS a reality. We cannot afford not to.

2 We know already that China is investing 

3 heavily in advanced coal technologies, and 

4 failure to keep up would put America at a 

5 competitive disadvantage. 

6 Invest in West Virginia and we will lead 

7 the way in advanced technology that can be sold 

8 around the world. Not only will this approach 

9 strengthen and protect our coal jobs in West 

10 Virginia, it will create a whole new opportunity 

11 for American job growth, developing and 

12 perfecting CCS technology to meet global demand.

13 As Harold McBride put it, we are not 

14 asking for any handouts. We simply want to be 

15 able to use what we have to earn a living. Work 

16 with us, not against us. Instead of attacking 

17 coal jobs with regulations, invest in West 

18 Virginia and we will deliver for you the 

19 technology to cut emissions without cutting jobs. 

20 Thank you all very much for allowing me to be 

21 here.

22 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you. Questions?

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1 Thank you, Dennis, and I apologize for 

2 misspeaking.

3 MR. SIMMERS: No problem, Barb.

4 I was not as prepared as the secretary, 

5 so I’m going to have to put these on. I did not 

6 put the large font, so -- good morning. My name 

7 is Dennis Simmers and I live in Cambria Township, 

8 Cambria County, Pennsylvania. 

9 And I have read -- I’m sorry, 

10 S-i-m-m-e-r-s. I have read many reports on 

11 today’s issue, and I’m here to testify in my 

12 opinion on the wide view of my community’s 

13 perspective.

14 I represent the sixth generation of my 

15 family to live in Cambria County, and through 

16 three successive generations, and now four with 

17 my children, we have been subjected to the 

18 hazards and detrimental consequences of discarded 

19 coal waste, waste bituminous coal on the surface 

20 of the earth. The effect is well known. Acid 

21 mine drainage, contaminated surface and ground 

22 water, hundreds of acres of unfit property, 

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1 public nuisance and life threatening train as 

2 well as air quality issues.

3 The Revloc waste coal pile was a perfect 

4 example, all in one of these detrimental effects. 

5 And L.J., would you show the folks those two 

6 pictures, please, go ahead, walk over. These are 

7 before and after photos.

8 From my earliest recollection until I was 

9 30, I can clearly recall the acid rotten 

10 extension contaminate of water around this pile. 

11 And at times it caught fire, resulting in smoke 

12 and odors crossing U.S. Route 422. I don’t know 

13 how large the pile was but it certainly 

14 encompassed many tens of acres.

15 Some of the residents of Revloc bordered 

16 within feet of the pile. Approximately 20 years 

17 ago we witnessed the arrival of three waste coal 

18 fired electric generating stations in Cambria 

19 Township. By historical standards, it seemed 

20 like the coal piles were being eliminated in no 

21 time, and I believe that the Revloc pile, for 

22 example, has been totally removed. What took the 

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1 mining industry approximately 60 to 100 years to 

2 create was eliminated in less than 20 years at no 

3 cost to the taxpayer.

4 I attended a similar public meeting on 

5 September 29th, 2009, and heard a Sierra Club 

6 spokesman say that he would prefer if we let 

7 mother nature take care of these piles, and threw 

8 around the term ten thousand years. 

9 Well, with all due respect to that 

10 individual and on behalf of my children, I 

11 disagree. I’m delighted that these piles are 

12 gone, such as Revloc. My children have no 

13 recollection of what was at that site. They’re 

14 not subjected to that odor smoke, dust, physical 

15 hazards of that pile any longer.

16 The waste coal power industry has taken 

17 an unchecked volatile situation and controlled 

18 it. The waste coal pile sits there as it was 

19 placed a long time ago with rainwater and snow 

20 melt freely dispersing all the heavy metals and 

21 pollutants into the surface and ground water. 

22 The waste coal air smells returned in a cement 

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1 like form, you know, free unchecked dispersion of 

2 pollutants is gone. The area is recovered with 

3 clay soils and revegetated with native species. 

4 Mammals of all kinds, insects and aquatic life 

5 have returned to these sites.

6 As a matter of fact, at that pile, that 

7 water restored so well that it’s now considered a 

8 cold water fishery by the Pennsylvania Fish and 

9 Boat Commission. How great is that?

10 The waste coal industry does not belong 

11 in discussions any further regarding these air 

12 emissions regulations. Thirty years of technical 

13 study and high scientific integrity have 

14 concluded there is not basis for further 

15 punishing this industry. 

16 I’d like to close my comments with a 

17 request. I mean as a local resident with 

18 children, I have witnessed the arrival of 

19 substantial solution to our problem. The waste 

20 coal power industry is in the process of safely 

21 remediating what I consider to be Pennsylvania’s 

22 number one environmental catastrophe. I urge the 

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1 EPA to support the waste coal power industry’s 

2 unique position in cleaning up the environment 

3 and keeping in mind during your consideration of 

4 the proposed rule.

5 I don’t live in Boston, Washington, 

6 Philadelphia or Seattle. We don’t visit this 

7 area once in a while, we live in the community 

8 one hundred percent of the time. 

9 Show them those two. These are high 

10 school recreation fields in the giant shadow. 

11 That’s where we live, a waste coal pile.

12 In my opinion, waste coal fired power is 

13 the very definition of environmental stewardship. 

14 It should be encouraged and not made to be even 

15 slightly more financially burdensome or punitive. 

16 Thank you for my time this morning. Questions?

17 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much. Any 

18 questions? Thank you both.

19 Our next two speakers will be John Breed 

20 and John Pippy. John Breed and John Pippy.

21 MR. BREED: My name is John Breed, 

22 B-r-e-e-d.

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1 MR. WAYLAND: Okay. Is Mr. Pippy in the 

2 room? John Pippy?

3 MR. WAYLAND: Okay, Mr. Breed, we’ll go 

4 ahead with your testimony.

5 MR. BREED: Good morning, and thank you 

6 for the opportunity to comment on the EPA’s Clean 

7 Power Plan. My name is John Breed. I am adjunct 

8 fellow with the American Security Project, a 

9 non-partisan think tank. I am also a former Navy 

10 Lieutenant. I did six years with the U.S. Navy.

11 I am not a regulatory expert, so I will 

12 not comment on the specifics of this rule, but I 

13 support the EPA in its ambition and goals. 

14 If there is one thing that my service as 

15 a naval officer, my time at the Pentagon has made 

16 very clear to me, is that the United States can 

17 no longer wait to confront the threats posed by 

18 climate change.

19 Speaking from a national security and a 

20 defense perspective, the threat I mean is more 

21 than just rising sea levels and melting ice caps. 

22 My concern lies in how climate change will make 

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1 large scale issues like regional instability 

2 around the world, extremism and terrorism more 

3 challenging for our country.

4 A fact that few people realize, roughly a 

5 decade ago the admirals and generals at the 

6 United States Pentagon who lead our armed forces 

7 began to acknowledge climate change’s role in 

8 compounding national security threats. Realizing 

9 this, they also began taking measures to address 

10 the problems directly. 

11 From their perspective, climate change is 

12 not a matter of state or national politics, but a 

13 very real condition that defense planners must 

14 take into consideration.

15 Now most notably, in 2009 Admiral 

16 Jonathan Greenert, who now serves as the leader 

17 of the United States Navy, launched task force 

18 climate change under the direction of now retired 

19 Admiral David Titley. This task force was 

20 instituted to study and make recommendations to 

21 Navy leadership on issues relating to policy, 

22 investment and action that will best affect the 

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1 future of Navy for structure and operations 

2 around the world.

3 Issues that task force climate address 

4 range from identifying the right ships to build 

5 now so that they are equipped to operate in the 

6 ice free Arctic, to the restructuring of the 

7 Navy’s bases around the world so that they are 

8 best suited to withstand rising sea levels.

9 Today the Pentagon’s commitment to 

10 planning for climate change has expanded to the 

11 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review better known as 

12 the QDR, and this is a document that serves as 

13 the military’s analysis of overall strategic

14 objectives of potential military threats in the 

15 future. 

16 In it, it specifically notes climate 

17 change poses another specific challenge to the 

18 United States and the world at large, because of 

19 threat multipliers, threat multipliers. And 

20 these will aggravate stressors abroad such as 

21 poverty, environmental degradation, political 

22 instability, and social tensions, conditions that 

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1 can enable terrorist activity and also enable 

2 other forms of violence.

3 Now what that means, and you know, I wish 

4 I could stand here and say that, you know, our 

5 uniformed leaders have somewhat become determined 

6 to save the environment, but that’s simply not 

7 the case. Like big corporations, who are also 

8 beginning to acknowledge that climate change is 

9 an overall threat to their bottom line, the 

10 military understands that this is a threat to 

11 national security.

12 Take the sub-Sahara region, this is an 

13 area of the world that is already poor and has a 

14 marginal economic base centered mainly on 

15 agriculture. Introduce a period of extended 

16 drought to that region’s limited resources, and 

17 the resources there automatically become scarcer. 

18 A possible consequence of this are that 

19 the people who inhabit these regions, unable to 

20 survive off the land, relocate to new cities and 

21 other regions occupied by different social 

22 groups.

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1 When they do, subsequent consequences 

2 occur. Increased population density, combined 

3 with poverty might breed the kind of political 

4 instability and extremism seen in Pakistan. Or 

5 we could get new conflicts based on ethnic 

6 cleansing, like those we’ve already witnessed in 

7 South Sudan and Rwanda. From the prospective of 

8 our military leaders, this is how climate change, 

9 you know, drought, multiply as a threat.

10 Now note that this is an entirely 

11 speculative problem. Less than a year ago 

12 Typhoon Haiyan made landfall in the Philippines 

13 with the highest sustained winds in recorded 

14 history. When it did, people living in these 

15 densely populated and poor regions were left in 

16 ruin.

17 In the wake of the storm the United 

18 States deployed the George Washington Strike 

19 Group, that’s 8,000 sailors and marines, to the 

20 region in order to respond to a potential 

21 humanitarian crisis.

22 If that humanitarian crisis were to have 

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1 gone unchecked, it could have thrown into 

2 jeopardy a country that is considered a major 

3 strategic ally in kind of the engagement between 

4 the United States and China.

5 Now it is not only a problem that’s 

6 occurring overseas. Defense support to civil 

7 authorities are also a growing military mission 

8 of the United States and has a direct effect on 

9 the radius of the National Guard, as well as 

10 other components of our domestic force.

11 If a wide scale flood were to occur here 

12 in Pennsylvania, which the National Climate 

13 Assessment specifically references, you will see 

14 American troops deployed to provide logistical 

15 aid -- oh, I’ll conclude -- humanitarian aid and 

16 law enforcement support. They can only do this 

17 because they have planned for it, because they 

18 have identified the problem and planned for it.

19 To conclude, the nature of this debate 

20 needs to shift from one of fact or fiction, to 

21 one of how to best mitigate the threat. It’s 

22 about acknowledging. The EPA’s proposed rule is 

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1 an important step forward in addressing these 

2 challenges of climate change, and I commend them 

3 for their efforts. Thank you.

4 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you, John. Any 

5 questions? Has Mr. Pippy arrived in the room 

6 yet, John Pippy?

7 Okay, our next two speakers -- and we’ll 

8 come back to Mr. Pippy if he arrives in the room. 

9 The next two speakers will be Cindy Frich and 

10 Cathy Dahlkemper.

11 MS. FRICH: Good morning. I’m Cindy 

12 Frich. I’m an elected delegate representing a 

13 large district in West Virginia, I’m from 

14 Morgantown, West Virginia.

15 And thank you for having this hearing 

16 here. I know it is a large urban center, but at 

17 least it is closer to the coal fields than the 

18 public hearings for the proposed power plants 

19 were.

20 I serve on the judiciary committee and 

21 the legislature, and the legislative rulemaking 

22 and review committee in the West Virginia 

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1 legislature. Not all states have a legislative 

2 review of rules. West Virginia does. So we have 

3 the opportunity to have some oversight over not 

4 only state agency rules, but also the State 

5 agency rules that are promulgated as a result of 

6 federal rules.

7 And I wish Congress had some oversight 

8 over rules. I certainly wish they had some input 

9 into these rules. I’m really quite concerned 

10 that this is just coming from a federal agency 

11 without the support of the elected officials in 

12 D.C.

13 I do represent West Virginia. As you 

14 would all know, that’s pretty much a coal state. 

15 I have to admit I feel that these rules are a 

16 threat to my state. We’re already having 

17 problems with our state budget. I really see 

18 problems ahead if these rules are implemented.

19 Who’s going to pay for the miners’ 

20 pensions, for the pension obligations, if you 

21 force the coal mines into bankruptcy. We already 

22 have quite a few bankruptcies, and from those 

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1 bankruptcies, we are learning now, that there are 

2 less coal operators, less tax revenues to pay for 

3 cleaning the water to comply with the Federal 

4 Clean Water Act and SMCRA, Surface Mine 

5 Regulations to keep the water clean. 

6 The water has to be kept clean decades 

7 after the mines close. If you don’t have any 

8 mines left, who’s going to be paying for that 

9 clean up? The taxpayers? Certainly, the 

10 taxpayers of West Virginia will no longer be able 

11 to. They won’t be able to shoulder this burden. 

12 This is going to be a huge -- have a huge impact 

13 on West Virginia. 

14 Now, serving on the rules committee, I 

15 understand that rules are supposed to be 

16 protecting the public health and safety. But 

17 they also have to be feasible. You also have to 

18 be able to implement these rules.

19 I am a little confused on how these rules 

20 really protect public health and safety. I 

21 support rules. I’m a Republican. I represent a 

22 Democrat district. I have a flagship university, 

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1 West Virginia, in my district, so there are -- I 

2 have a lot of liberal constituents. I have a 

3 wide range of constituents. It’s a Democrat 

4 district, but I’m a Republican. 

5 I support protecting people. I support 

6 keeping our air and water clean. I support rules 

7 that protect us from pollutants. I find it hard 

8 to understand how carbon is a pollutant. I don’t 

9 want to get into that discussion right now 

10 because my time is limited.

11 So I know when I look at rules, you’re 

12 not really supposed to look at the job impact, 

13 you look at the public health, but frankly, this 

14 is going to be so devastating on West Virginia’s 

15 economy and the economy of the United States, I 

16 can’t help but think about poverty and the impact 

17 of people losing their job. These are good 

18 paying jobs.

19 And this isn’t just going to hurt people 

20 in the coal fields, or the ancillary jobs. This 

21 is going to prevent and limit future 

22 manufacturing opportunities for this country, and 

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1 I find it very difficult when I go shopping to 

2 find anything made in the United States as it is.

3 If we have a reliable energy source, we 

4 have natural gas that’s going to help us with 

5 manufacturing, but why would we limit our energy 

6 sources, why would we eliminate the base load for 

7 the electric grid? Why would you do that? This 

8 seems to me like economic suicide for this 

9 country.

10 And we should try to have energy 

11 independence. Look at the Middle East. Why 

12 would we want to rely on our energy from the 

13 Middle East from people that do not like us that 

14 would -- well, would like to destroy us and our 

15 allies. 

16 We can’t even help Europe right now to 

17 provide energy to them so that they can stand up 

18 to Russia’s aggressions. What position will we 

19 be in when we eliminate coal, the energy from 

20 coal? What’s that going to do to our national 

21 security? Why would a country do this to 

22 themselves? Why?

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1 And another thing that you really need to 

2 think about, I beg environmentalists to think 

3 about this. If you limit West -- for example, if 

4 you limit West Virginia’s resources by shutting 

5 down the mines and forcing us to lose our jobs, 

6 how are we going to have the resources to pay for 

7 the West Virginia Department of Environmental 

8 Protection to inspect and monitor the water and 

9 the air for real pollutants. Please don’t remove 

10 -- please, we need to focus on real pollutants, 

11 not carbon. It’s a distraction.

12 If you impact the industry in such a 

13 manner, how will we have the resources to keep 

14 our air and water clean? How are we going to pay 

15 for our inspectors? How will we do it?

16 You know, we had a big crisis in 

17 Charleston when the legislature started this 

18 session this year with our water. I drank that 

19 water. I got ill the next day from drinking that 

20 water. Now, that was not on a coal mine site. 

21 It would have been more heavily regulated had it 

22 been. It was along the river in a tank. We did 

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1 not have rules to regulate tanks.

2 I was right there for stronger 

3 regulations to have regulations for tanks and to 

4 keep our water clean. I am interested in keeping 

5 people safe from pollutants and harm, and I, 

6 again, find this very difficult to understand how 

7 carbon fits into that category.

8 And again, I believe this is economic 

9 suicide. It’s going to impact our national 

10 security in a very grave manner, and I totally --

11 I’m very concerned about this and I hope that you 

12 do not go forward with these rules. I thank you 

13 very much.

14 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you, Delegate.

15 Okay, John? Yes, okay, John Pippy and 

16 Cathy Dahlkemper.

17 MR. PIPPY: Good morning. As was 

18 mentioned, my name is John Pippy. I am the CEO 

19 of the Pennsylvania Coal Alliance. We are the 

20 trade association that represents the interest of 

21 the bituminous coal mine operators and all the 

22 associated businesses, companies that support the 

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1 coal industry, and specifically the bituminous 

2 coal industry in Pennsylvania.

3 To put into prospective, my association 

4 represents over 90 percent of the bituminous coal 

5 that’s mined in the commonwealth with over 310 

6 active companies involved.

7 According to a recent economic impact 

8 study conducted by the Pennsylvania Economy 

9 League, the commonwealth coal mining industries 

10 supports more than 36,000 jobs and over four 

11 billion dollars annually to our state’s economy.

12 There will be a lot of people testifying 

13 today who will talk about some of the broader 

14 impacts. What I’d like to do today is provide 

15 some testimony specific to the numbers coming 

16 from these proposals. Some of our concerns, some 

17 questions which we will then submit, 

18 electronically via the docket process, or to the 

19 proper docket, but we wanted to share these now. 

20 Coal accounts for 40 percent of the 

21 electricity generated in the Commonwealth of 

22 Pennsylvania, and of that, eighty percent of our 

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1 coal goes to steam jet power generation. So we

2 are directly tied in with the electric grid, and 

3 that is critical to the coal economy in 

4 Pennsylvania. Therefore, any law or regulation 

5 that deliberately or unintentionally impedes coal 

6 usage by electric generators not only threatens 

7 the affordability and reliability of electricity 

8 to ratepayers, but also causes severe economic 

9 consequences to coal production, jobs and 

10 livelihood. Local tax basis and the overall 

11 economy will be impacted.

12 Unfortunately, our concern with the EPA’s 

13 proposed Clean Energy Plan is that it represents 

14 one of the biggest obstacles to continued coal 

15 use that we have confronted in decades.

16 Although it’s billed as being very 

17 flexible and achievable for states to curb 

18 greenhouse gas emissions, it’s in our minds a de

19 facto attempt to transform America’s energy usage 

20 away from coal. And I will get into some of the 

21 specifics.

22 Under the proposed plan Pennsylvania’s 

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1 average interim emissions rate goal from 2020 to 

2 2029 is 1,179 pounds per megawatt hour, and it’s 

3 final emission goal is 1,052 pounds per megawatt 

4 hour.

5 To achieve the final goal, Pennsylvania 

6 would have to reduce carbon emissions by 32 

7 percent over our 2012 levels, and if we use the 

8 2005 baseline, which the EPA and the President 

9 uses a lot, it wouldn’t be 30 percent average, it 

10 would actually be 42 percent production in 

11 Pennsylvania’s CO2 emissions by 2030. And that’s 

12 -- correction, 42 percent, so that’s a very 

13 significant number.

14 According to our own DEP in Pennsylvania, 

15 the CO2 emissions from our electricity generating 

16 fleet have already declined by 12 percent from 

17 2005 to 2012. And our projected, if we continue 

18 on the path of what we’re doing right now in 

19 Pennsylvania, we will see a twenty-two percent 

20 decline in CO2 emissions from 2005 to 2020, not 

21 even getting into 2030.

22 So what I would argue is we’re seeing 

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1 tremendous leadership. These reductions have 

2 been accomplished while Pennsylvania has 

3 maintained a very stable and reliable supply of 

4 electricity that is very competitive. Not only 

5 lower than the national average, but also lowest 

6 among our neighboring northeastern states who 

7 we’re starting to be compared with many times. 

8 You could attribute this fact -- it’s not 

9 just about coal -- you can attribute this fact to 

10 95 percent of our generation comes from coal, 

11 nuclear and natural gas. And obviously, we’re 

12 seeing an increase in natural gas usage.

13 Moreover, we actually already implemented 

14 in the mid 2000's, I believe it was around 2006, 

15 an energy portfolio on the books that required 

16 electric distribution companies to adopt plans to 

17 reduce energy demand and consumption within their 

18 service territories. At that time I was a state 

19 senator. I’m a Republican. I was one of the few 

20 who was on the Bills as a sponsor for that 

21 legislation, and we sent the model back in 2006 

22 prior to requirements from the federal 

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1 government. 

2 So we believe we are taking the right 

3 steps despite having all the above energy 

4 portfolio in place. If we were to follow the 

5 rules that you propose, that’s being proposed 

6 right now, that would completely eliminate coal 

7 or significantly eliminate coal from the 

8 portfolio.

9 DEP also testified that if we have to 

10 follow these rules, that by 2030, over 70 percent 

11 of coal consumption levels will decrease by over 

12 70 percent. We’ll go from 33 million tons to 

13 about 10 million tons. We’ll go to a coal 

14 utilization rate of about 17 percent at the power 

15 plants, and everyone knows that you can’t run a 

16 plant on 17 percent. So we believe there will be 

17 a lot of unintended consequences associated with 

18 this plan.

19 We would ask the Agency a couple 

20 questions. Will we get clarification on how the 

21 plan would credit states like Pennsylvania for 

22 the good work we’ve always done, for the 

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1 efficiencies that we’re talking about? Does the 

2 Agency intend to exempt such upgrade from the NSR 

3 triggering mechanisms, which would be very 

4 prohibitive, to the efficiencies you’d like the 

5 existing plants to do, and there are significant 

6 concerns about the grid liability and what will 

7 offset the coal plants that have been providing 

8 power, specifically in the cold winters. Over 95 

9 percent of the coal plants were in usage during 

10 the polar vortex. A lot of those won’t be around 

11 in 2016 under current regulations, not even the 

12 proposed regulations.

13 So has EPA -- does EPA have numbers that 

14 can speak to the grid liability and the pricing 

15 associated with that? I know I’m out of time and 

16 I know how important that is, so I will submit 

17 the rest for the record under the docket process. 

18 I appreciate the time. What we’re asking is, 

19 we’ll sit down and look at the details and do 

20 some of the math so that we can have a reasonable 

21 life path that gets us to continuous improvement 

22 everyone talks about. Thank you very much.

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1 MR. GARVIN: Thank you. Could I just ask 

2 folks, as they’re coming in and out of the room, 

3 to try to be as quiet as possible to be 

4 respectful of the speakers that are up here 

5 testifying. I know the doors are open and some 

6 of the noise is filtering in, but let’s try to 

7 keep it as quiet as possible inside the room and 

8 at the door so that we can hear the comments that 

9 are being made. Thank you.

10 And one last reminder for the court 

11 reporter, please spell your last name when you 

12 come up to testify so that we get it correct in 

13 the record. Sorry for the delay.

14 MS. DAHLKEMPER: No problem. Good 

15 morning, Regional Administrator Shawn Garvin and 

16 EPA officials. My name is Cathy Dahlkemper. I 

17 am the County Executive from Erie County, 

18 Pennsylvania.

19 And I’d like to thank President Obama for 

20 taking an unprecedented step forward and 

21 announcing a series of executive actions to 

22 reduce carbon pollution. Prepare the United 

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1 States for the impacts of climate change and lead 

2 international efforts to address global climate 

3 issues.

4 I would also like to thank EPA 

5 Administrator, Gina McCarthy, and the regional 

6 office for the opportunity to participate today 

7 in support of the EPA Clean Power Plan.

8 Today I sit before you as the County 

9 Executive of Erie County, Pennsylvania, having an 

10 obligation to the more than 280,000 residents, 

11 and more importantly, I stand and sit here in 

12 front of you as the mother of five and the 

13 grandmother of six. 

14 All of these people will be negatively 

15 impacted if we do not take the necessary steps 

16 now to address carbon emissions and climate 

17 pollution. Clean air is critical to protecting 

18 the public health and the environment.

19 There is also evidence showing that it’s 

20 a good investment. The EPA’s Clean Power Plan 

21 offers a common sense, flexible, and achievable 

22 way to help protect the health of our communities 

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1 and address the impact of a chaotic climate on 

2 our world. 

3 What is great is that this plan allows 

4 states to design plans that best fit our regional 

5 economies, and mixes of energy sources. We, here 

6 in Pennsylvania, get to decide how we move 

7 forward to protect our air as well as our 

8 climate.

9 As County Executive, I am tasked with 

10 safeguarding the health and welfare of my 

11 constituents. I’m charged with public safety, 

12 with protecting the most vulnerable, and with 

13 ensuring a safe and vibrant community now and 

14 into the future.

15 Children, the elderly and the poor are 

16 the most vulnerable to a range of climate related 

17 health effects. In Pennsylvania one in five 

18 children suffer from asthma, with those numbers 

19 predicted to increase as the climate warms. If 

20 you’ve never seen one of your loved ones, a 

21 little tiny two-year-old, have an asthma attack, 

22 you haven’t seen the effects of this on a small 

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1 child.

2 The elderly too often suffer from heat 

3 stroke and even death as we see in terms of the 

4 temperatures increase. 

5 Poverty rates in Erie County are among 

6 the highest in Pennsylvania. It’s those who are 

7 marginalized that will feel the full brunt of 

8 climate change as its effects become more 

9 pronounced in the coming decades. The price of 

10 food will likely increase, and the poor are 

11 almost always the hardest hit when we have harsh 

12 weather related disasters.

13 Pennsylvania’s number one industry is 

14 agriculture. In Erie County, agriculture still 

15 is a major segment of our economy, yet that 

16 industry has growing issues due to climate 

17 change. They’ve seen extreme rain events, 

18 unseasonably hot or cold weather, even for Erie, 

19 and drought.

20 The Clean Power Plan not only protects 

21 the health of our children and families, it’s a 

22 common sense approach that puts control, as I 

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1 said, directly into the hands of the state.

2 This is something that I think we should 

3 all feel good about. Reduced carbon emissions is 

4 a matter of public health. It is a government 

5 agency fulfilling its purpose. Mostly, it’s 

6 about our future and the legacy that we will 

7 leave our children and our grandchildren.

8 Here in Pennsylvania and throughout the 

9 country we do not have to choose between the 

10 health of our citizens and the strength of our 

11 economy. This plan offers opportunities to grow 

12 and strengthen Pennsylvania’s workforce, to 

13 create families and saving jobs of the future.

14 The Clean Power Plan gives the 

15 Commonwealth a variety of tools to establish to 

16 reach a specified target of carbon emission 

17 reduction.

18 It places emphasis on a comprehensive 

19 approach to energy, and it allows us to work with 

20 Pennsylvania’s current energy production.

21 The proposal is chiefly aimed at cutting 

22 pollution. This can be achieved if we give 

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1 workers and businesses the tools and the 

2 incentives to innovate. 

3 In my hometown of Erie, we have the 

4 opportunity to join with our neighbors along the 

5 shores of Lake Erie in Ohio, to build an offshore 

6 wind farm, some of the best possibilities for 

7 offshore wind in the country.

8 We’re working on a program to improve the 

9 energy efficiency of our homes. There is great 

10 potential for job growth in these initiatives. 

11 Throughout the Commonwealth we can save 

12 money, reduce energy demands and put people to 

13 work by employing energy efficiency measures, 

14 properly investing in clean energy technology 

15 such as advanced biofuels, emerging nuclear

16 technologies, and offshore wind will take us to a 

17 more vibrant future. 

18 Pennsylvania has an opportunity to 

19 develop a strong, all inclusive plan that moves 

20 us forward, to once again be the leader of energy 

21 throughout the world. As a country, we have the

22 opportunity to become a global leader in our 

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1 energy future that protects our vulnerable 

2 municipalities, our open spaces and most 

3 importantly, our citizens. 

4 The Clean Power Plan is a first step, an 

5 important first step that demonstrates the United 

6 States is resolute in addressing climate change. 

7 I thank you for the opportunity to speak in front 

8 of you today.

9 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you. Okay, our next 

10 two speakers will be Pat Brown and Gary Wire.

11 MS. BROWN: Ready?

12 MR. WAYLAND: Yes.

13 MS. BROWN: My name is Pat Brown. I’m an 

14 educator, climate change organizer, a member of 

15 the Sierra Club Clean Energy Committee, youth 

16 advocate and a concerned member of the urban low 

17 income community in Cleveland, Ohio.

18 I would first like to commend the EPA on 

19 the carbon emissions reduction from the power 

20 plants by 12 to 15 percent since 2005. Still, 

21 together we have a lot of work to do, and this 

22 hearing will set us forward in a moving direction 

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1 with a collective goal of improving the quality 

2 of life for our children and the next generation.

3 As we unite with the responsibility to 

4 make a great impact in the lives of our 

5 communities, together we can accomplish this goal 

6 with everyone taking responsibility for our 

7 environmental impacts. And I appreciate this 

8 opportunity to speak before you as a citizen of 

9 this country and a concerned member of the 

10 community.

11 Let us first begin to discuss several 

12 impacts of carbon pollution in our daily lives. 

13 This includes the health impacts of our children, 

14 elderly and disabled, those with limited 

15 communication skills, with the inability to 

16 explain wants and needs, yet in the asthmatic 

17 related concerns.

18 It is stated that there is an estimated 

19 cost of more than a hundred billion dollars 

20 annually in health costs, and more than 12,000 

21 emergency room visits per year.

22 My personal experience with asthma began 

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1 as a child, remembering the inability to 

2 communicate what was happening at the time of 

3 experiencing several asthmatic attacks. This 

4 condition still exists today. However, until the 

5 Affordable Healthcare Act was implemented, I had 

6 no insurance to obtain the medicines needed. Not 

7 until this year am I able to obtain the necessary 

8 asthmatic medicines.

9 To further elaborate, carbon pollution 

10 has an impact on our food and water supply in 

11 addition to its economic impacts. While working 

12 as a clean energy organizer, it was stated that 

13 there is over 2,000 tons of toxins placed in the 

14 environment daily by coal power plants.

15 In fact, due to the amount of mercury in 

16 Lake Erie, it is recommended not to exceed the 

17 consumption of two pieces of fish annually. Now, 

18 this is disheartening because as a child I 

19 remember fishing with my family in Lake Erie, yet 

20 these level of toxins robs our children and our 

21 families of this experience together.

22 Still, carbon pollution not only has an 

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1 impact in our marine life, but our land as well. 

2 According to the Ohio State Extension Program, 

3 the amount of lead contamination in the City of 

4 Cleveland has an impact on community farming and 

5 urban gardening. The impacts are mostly in areas 

6 where coal power plants are located.

7 Thus, common pollution creates both an 

8 impact on our food and water supply and the basic 

9 needs for human and animal survival. Yet there 

10 is an opportunity to improve the impacts of food, 

11 water, health and health costs, in addition to 

12 creating jobs. Together we can accomplish this 

13 goal through proposed cap and trade initiatives, 

14 allowing carbon power plants to purchase carbon 

15 credits, while allowing gradual implementation of 

16 clean energy improvements and establishing annual 

17 benchmarks to assist in attaining the carbon 

18 pollution reduction goals by 2030.

19 In fact, according to the former EPA 

20 Administrator, Christie Whitman, the gross 

21 domestic product grew 195 percent while major 

22 environmental projections were put in place from 

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1 1970 through 2006.

2 In conclusion, although we have made 

3 great strides to move our country forward, in 

4 fact, it is stated that the U.S. has already 

5 reduced carbon emissions from power plants by 12 

6 to 15 percent, yet we still have much work to do 

7 to accomplish a collective goal and improving the 

8 quality of life for our children in the next 

9 generation.

10 This would include the electric sector 

11 reducing emissions 35 to 40 percent, below 2005 

12 levels by 2020, to achieve its share of the 

13 President’s 17 percent economy wide goal, a goal 

14 of 35 percent below 2005 by 2020, or 25 percent 

15 below 2012 levels by 2020 is achievable.

16 Still, it is our responsibility to make a 

17 great impact in the lives of our community. 

18 Together we can accomplish this goal with a 

19 forward moving agenda, without having individuals 

20 choose between providing income for their family 

21 and their family’s health. 

22 I appreciate your consideration and 

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1 action upon this matter. Now we must act as 

2 though our lives depend upon it because it does. 

3 Thank you and God bless.

4 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you. 

5 MR. WIRE: Gary Wire, that’s W-i-r-e. 

6 I’m a retired materials scientist and I’ve lived 

7 in Pittsburgh since 1985. In 1973 I started at 

8 Westinghouse in Washington State doing research 

9 in the radiation effects on materials for breeder 

10 reactor and fusion energy systems. Since 1985 I 

11 worked at Bettis Electric Power Laboratory in 

12 Pittsburgh doing research on radiation and 

13 corrosion effects on light water power plant 

14 materials.

15 I fully support the EPA proposed standard 

16 and I want it to be implemented without weakening 

17 in any way. In fact, I believe it needs to use a 

18 higher price on carbon, and additional EPA 

19 regulations are needed for the potent greenhouse 

20 gas, methane. 

21 Climate change represents a serious 

22 threat to the future health off all of our 

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1 grandchildren due to higher pollen concentrations 

2 and longer pollen seasons. Asthma and allergies 

3 are already a big problem for my granddaughters, 

4 Emma, Abigail and Mary.

5 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 

6 Change reported in 2007 that scientists are more 

7 than 90 percent certain that most of global 

8 warming was being caused by increasing 

9 concentration of greenhouse gases produced by 

10 human activities, yet no major climate action has 

11 been enacted in the U.S. since that time.

12 The present gridlock in U.S. politics 

13 precludes congressional action and climate change 

14 even though a majority of the systems might favor 

15 such action.

16 As a result, I joined the Citizen’s 

17 Climate Lobby this year. The goal of CCL is to 

18 create the political well needed for a stable 

19 climate. It advocates a market based in revenue 

20 neutral solution. The solution used is a 

21 transparent, simple and predictable steadily 

22 rising carbon fee with all the revenue returned 

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1 directly to American families.

2 Over a 20 year period this would create 

3 two million jobs and add 1.38 trillion dollars to 

4 the GDP. I believe that such a plan is needed 

5 for the long run.

6 But the EPA proposed standard on power 

7 plants can provide near term action. The EPA has

8 authority granted by a bipartisan congress signed 

9 by a republican president and confirmed by a 

10 conservative supreme court. 

11 Four republican past chiefs of the EPA 

12 not only have maintained under oath that action 

13 on climate change is needed, but that the EPA is 

14 well within its right to take such action. It 

15 can set standards to reduce carbon pollution from 

16 power plants. This action will send a strong 

17 signal that climate change denial is no longer 

18 viable in this country and engage the states in 

19 programs of their own choosing to reduce carbon 

20 emission.

21 I’d like to call on the EPA to include a 

22 recommendation to the states of a preferred path 

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1 to meet these standards, a path to impose a 

2 revenue neutral carbon tax, using a fee in 

3 dividend approach as advocated by the Citizen’s 

4 Climate Lobby.

5 In conclusion, it’s my hope that the EPA 

6 Act should lead to the end of a present 

7 congressional gridlock and unleash the vast 

8 technological resources that we have in this 

9 country to limit carbon pollution. Thank you. 

10 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you. Questions? 

11 Thank you, very much.

12 Our next two speakers will be Robert 

13 Howard and Frank Szollosi. Mr. Howard, when 

14 you’re ready.

15 MR. HOWARD: Thank you. I’m Robert 

16 Howard, H-o-w-a-r-d, Marshall Township, Allegheny 

17 County, Pennsylvania. 

18 Thank you for providing this time for 

19 public comment. I am not an owner, employee, 

20 vendor, consultant, lobbyist, or investor in the 

21 coal, gas and oil industry. I’m not even paid by 

22 a non-profit to speak to you. I am not even here 

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1 representing a wind farm or alternative energy. 

2 I’m a citizen who will be impacted by your 

3 decisions and that is why I’m speaking to you 

4 this morning.

5 Your decisions will affect how much I pay 

6 to heat my home. Your decisions will affect how 

7 much I pay for electricity, and your decisions 

8 will impact the cost of everything I buy. Even 

9 more basic, your decisions will impact economic 

10 growth, and therefore, our pensions, taxes and 

11 standard of living.

12 These regulations will have an even 

13 greater impact upon the poor and those attempting 

14 to join America’s workforce. It would be one 

15 thing if these regulations resulted in 

16 substantial improvements, in death rates and 

17 human health advancement and substantial 

18 improvements in the environment, but that is not 

19 the case.

20 As a citizen I am asking for pragmatic 

21 energy regulations that balance our nation’s 

22 economic needs, energy security and environmental 

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1 quality objectives. Your emissions plan would 

2 largely dictate to the states the type of 

3 electricity generation they could build and

4 operate. In addition, you seek to essentially 

5 ban coal from the U.S. energy mix. 

6 Your pursuit of this objective will 

7 heavily impact not only our region but the entire 

8 U.S. economy. Because of these regulations, 

9 hundreds of thousands of Americans will lose 

10 their jobs. Because of these regulations, our 

11 electric rates will go higher, as will the cost 

12 of everything we purchase.

13 Because of these regulations we will have 

14 a drop in our GDP, and because of these 

15 regulations, that once reliable source of energy 

16 will be gone.

17 This makes no sense when we are not --

18 when we will not be experiencing a corresponding 

19 significant improvement in our environment. 

20 According to the governors of many of the 

21 states affected, the energy industry is a major 

22 source of job creation and America was able to 

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1 reach almost 90 percent of its energy needs last 

2 year. Why are we continuing to call for closing 

3 coal plants and mandating the billing of 

4 unsustainable renewable energy operations? How 

5 did one size fits all regulations impact the area 

6 of energy that uses something called refuse coal? 

7 Refuse coal is coal that was mined 

8 decades ago for the steel industry, and it was 

9 determined not to be of sufficient quality for 

10 use in the industry, so it was left. It was left 

11 on the hillsides of Pennsylvania and throughout 

12 Appalachia. 

13 Technological advancements have allowed 

14 certain power plants to turn piles of low quality 

15 coal left throughout the countryside into cheap 

16 domestic energy. This is allowed for cleaning 

17 the environment and restoring landscapes and 

18 rivers.

19 Plants across Pennsylvania and states 

20 including Illinois, Montana, Utah and West 

21 Virginia are doing tremendous work to clean the 

22 environment and generate affordable electricity.

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1 Unfortunately, one size fits all rules 

2 will threaten to shut down these plants that use 

3 waste coal, and halt the progress being made to 

4 clean these sites. We need common sense 

5 regulations and exceptions that recognize the 

6 important energy and environmental benefits that 

7 these power plants will provide.

8 Developing our nation’s plentiful natural 

9 resource and being good stewards of the 

10 environment need not be neutrally exclusive. A 

11 booming economy provides the innovation and the 

12 money to improve the environment. When America 

13 is booming, people get back to work. Every 

14 person returning to work is a person paying 

15 social security tax, Medicare tax. Income tax 

16 payments allow us to pay for critical social 

17 services. So you will be impacting each one of 

18 these by your decision.

19 A booming economy depends upon reliable 

20 supplies of reasonably priced energy. Coal 

21 should be part of that mix. 

22 Now is not the time to destroy jobs and 

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1 reduce our nation’s GDP for a questionable 

2 benefit. Thank you. 

3 MR. SZOLLOSI: Thank you. My name is 

4 Frank Szollosi. I’m here on behalf of four 

5 million hunters, anglers, wildlife enthusiasts. 

6 I represent National Wildlife Federation. I live 

7 in Toledo, Ohio.

8 Unofficially, I’m here as a parent of 

9 Alesandra and Isabel, because this standard is 

10 going to impact them and their generation and 

11 future generations far more than it will impact 

12 those of us in the room today.

13 The Great Lake states emit more carbon 

14 pollution than any other region in this country. 

15 We have a moral imperative to address that. 

16 Carbon pollution in Ohio is making harmful algae 

17 blooms in western Lake Erie far, far worse.

18 Every year outdoor recreation generates 

19 17.4 billion dollars in consumer spending and 

20 supports 196,000 jobs just in Ohio. As you 

21 factor in the cost benefit analysis of carbon 

22 pollution, factor in a friend of mine who is a 

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1 charter boat captain out of Port Clinton, who is 

2 losing business because of these algae blooms, 

3 because the water is getting warmer and the 

4 increasing rainfall is pushing more nutrients out 

5 into the lake. He’s lost business. The marinas 

6 are suffering, and those of us who like to take 

7 our kids fishing are finding that it’s much, much 

8 more difficult.

9 Fifty-three percent of Ohio residents 

10 participate in outdoor recreation every year. We 

11 want to preserve that for their generation and 

12 future generations.

13 The National Wildlife Federation speaks 

14 out for wildlife in our children’s future, 

15 because in many cases they can’t. Your proposed 

16 targets can and should be strengthened. The 

17 pollution reductions could be greater at a 

18 reasonable cost. 

19 Our initial analysis indicates emissions 

20 can be reduced beyond those projected by the EPA, 

21 and the goal of this plan should be to reduce 

22 emissions 35 to 40 percent below 2005 emissions 

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1 by 2020.

2 Primarily, the formula used by EPA to 

3 establish the emissions target and standard of 

4 each state needs to be adjusted to reflect the 

5 fact that additional available cleaning and 

6 renewable generation and energy efficiency 

7 resources would replace generation from the 

8 dirtiest fossil fuel sources and at a faster 

9 pace, yielding greater emissions than the EPA 

10 assumed.

11 Clean renewable energy has been growing 

12 at an astonishing rate. In 2012 wind energy and 

13 solar were two of the fastest growing electric 

14 generation technologies in the United States. 

15 And the fact of the matter is, you can put up 

16 more reliable wind farms than you can a new coal 

17 plant, and much cleaner, much cleaner.

18 Since 2009 the Obama Administration have 

19 supported 339 renewable energy projects in Ohio, 

20 generating enough power to support 100,000 homes. 

21 In 2013 the USDA awarded small, rural and 

22 agricultural businesses in Ohio over 1.1 million 

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1 dollars in grants for efficiency and increased 

2 renewable energy use. Ohio appreciates the 

3 flexibility that you’ve given it to meet your 

4 targets. In speaking to elected officials back 

5 in Ohio, I hope they take you up on your 

6 flexibility. 

7 In a previous life, I was elected twice 

8 to serve on Toledo City Counsel, and I can tell 

9 you that climate change and climate impacts are 

10 increasing the burden on municipalities in 

11 counties in Ohio. 

12 Take their cost and the cost to taxpayers 

13 into consideration in your cost benefit analysis, 

14 and mention the harmful algae blooms. The City 

15 of Toledo has to spend an additional one million 

16 dollars a year to deal with the toxins that are 

17 coming in from the water intake out in Maumee 

18 Bay. That’s money that could be used to put 

19 police on the street, or support our fire and 

20 rescue services. Instead, it’s dealing with the 

21 externalities caused by burning coal.

22 One more point of personal privilege, and 

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1 I appreciate your indulgence with a couple of big 

2 ones here today. My great-grandfather was born 

3 in Belmont County in Ohio. His mom and dad came 

4 over to work coal mines down there. And so we’re 

5 not blind to the impact that the transition could 

6 have on individuals, families and communities 

7 dependent upon coal.

8 And I think that just personally, one of 

9 the shortcomings of your plan is, there’s no 

10 transition assistance indicated. Coal families I 

11 see are in a similar position as the tobacco 

12 farmers when they faced regulation 10, 15 years 

13 ago.

14 They were given by taxpayers, a 

15 transition assistance program, and I would 

16 encourage the EPA, the Department of Labor, 

17 Department of Commerce in particular, to put that 

18 on the table. The fact of the matter is, those 

19 folks deserve the transition assistance as a 

20 result of the impacts that, not just the EPA, but 

21 companies and individuals are making towards a 

22 clean energy future, a future that, you know, I 

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1 want my kids to have and I know that you want 

2 your kids to have. Thank you very much.

3 MR. WAYLAND: Would you please spell your 

4 last name for the court reporter?

5 MR. SZOLLOSI: Szollosi, S-z-o-l-l-o-s-i.

6 MR. WAYLAND: Okay, our next two speakers 

7 will be Cricket Hunter and Chris Howitz.

8 MS. HUNTER: Good morning, my name is 

9 Cricket Hunter and I’m here speaking today as the 

10 Executive Director of Pennsylvania Interfaith 

11 Power and Light, a registered 501(c)(3).

12 Pennsylvania Interfaith Power and Light 

13 is made up of individuals and communities of 

14 faith responding to climate change and active 

15 faithful hope. We are drawn to this work by the 

16 scripture and the wisdom of our traditions. 

17 We turn to different sources for the 

18 words, but they carry a shared call to care for 

19 creation, for the world and all who dwell in it, 

20 and to particular care for the most vulnerable 

21 people.

22 Climate change magnifies ills that faith 

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1 communities that long responded to, food and 

2 security, water and security, disease, conflict 

3 and many natural disasters, and we are stepping 

4 up again. We know that the EPA’s charge is to 

5 protect the health and welfare of Americans. We 

6 also know that the health and welfare of other 

7 beings and other peoples is at risk. We act for 

8 them as well.

9 People of faith are increasingly doing 

10 what we can to limit emissions. As much as we 

11 may take on, and as meaningful and important as 

12 it is to do the work as part of our faithful 

13 walk, it takes a long time to fill a bucket with 

14 drops of water, and we no longer have that 

15 luxury.

16 Cutting emissions 30 percent from 2005 

17 levels is a broad goal, bold enough to begin our 

18 necessary turn away from combustion towards 

19 sustainable and renewable sources of energy, 

20 allowing states to develop singular paths to the 

21 shared goal allows each to showcase its 

22 particular strengths, and to shift as we develop 

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1 new ways of using the resources we are freely and 

2 forever given, the wind, the sun and the tides.

3 Today we know you will hear some comments 

4 that are rooted in fear instead of in hope. You 

5 will hear that the Clean Power Plan will lay off 

6 workers and that communities are hurting. That 

7 is partly right. Communities are hurting. Mine 

8 tailings, coal dust, coal emissions and coal ash 

9 are hurting communities, poor communities right 

10 now, increasing lung disease, heart disease and 

11 cancer. The result in climate change will hurt 

12 us all, but the poorest fair the worst. We 

13 cannot knowingly continue to stand on their 

14 backs.

15 Coal representatives will tell you that 

16 acting responsibly on carbon pollution will steal 

17 jobs from communities on the economic edge. They 

18 won’t say that those jobs have never driven 

19 executive decision making. They won’t mention 

20 that those jobs are already in a decades long 

21 decline, or that the decline is about bottom 

22 lines, not about federal policy.

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1 Combined coal output from West Virginia 

2 and Kentucky has held nearly steady since 1983. 

3 But mining jobs have dropped by half. 

4 We do need to help generate new paths for 

5 employees and communities that currently depend 

6 upon fossil fuels, holding tight to the 

7 diminishing fuels that the 18th and 19th 

8 centuries instead of reaching forward to the 

9 power of the 21st is not the way to do it.

10 Like our faith communities, the United 

11 States is explicitly founded on values. As such, 

12 we have a unique opportunity to lead according to 

13 those values. When we don’t, as we have not on 

14 climate change, our silence is deafening.

15 When these proposed standards were 

16 announced in June, the World took note. China 

17 immediately began hinting at an absolute cap on 

18 its own carbon emissions, and has since created 

19 eight pilot carbon trading markets.

20 Christians talk about acting as a city on 

21 a hill. When we act as we should, using the 

22 gifts we’ve been given, the example shines and 

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1 draws others in. PAIPL applauds these proposed 

2 standards for their leadership as well as for 

3 their direct effect.

4 PAIPL urges the EPA to implement the 

5 carbon pollutions standards as quickly as 

6 possible, and we urge states, Pennsylvania, to 

7 begin creating meaningful state implementation 

8 plans without delay. In order that these two 

9 steps forward are not undercut by a giant step 

10 back, we also urge the EPA to act quickly to 

11 release meaningful standards for methane, 

12 particularly extract of methane.

13 Faith communities are already switching 

14 off our harmful standard mix electricity. We 

15 look forward to a meaningful, national and 

16 international movement from all of the above to 

17 power from above. Thank you for your time.

18 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you. Questions? 

19 Thank you. 

20 MR. HOWITZ: I’m Chris Howitz, 

21 H-o-w-i-t-z. I’m a resident of Pittsburgh and 

22 CEO of Electrogrid, which is a manufacturer of 

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1 components for the semi-conductor industry here 

2 in Pittsburgh.

3 I am enthusiastic about climate 

4 protection and energy saving. For example, my 

5 business has a green building with co-generation, 

6 skylights, adaptive lighting and adaptive clean 

7 room driving in the fans.

8 All of this comes at a cost, which has 

9 the potential to make us less competitive from 

10 other firms which do not do those energy saving 

11 regimes.

12 For more than 25 years I’ve been 

13 disappointed by Pittsburgh’s deadly power station 

14 fine particle and mercury pollution. I couldn’t 

15 believe just how many decades it took for the EPA 

16 to force our power stations to comply with its 

17 new source regulations. I am now grateful for 

18 the EPA’s new source actions which will help 

19 Pittsburgh to maintain its goal of being a most 

20 beautiful city.

21 I can understand the desire of the owners 

22 of coal mines to ignore safety regulations and to 

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1 promote continued coal use. Similarly, I can 

2 understand the preference of utilities viewing 

3 themselves as private businesses to continue 

4 polluting. 

5 However, the societal cost of the lost 

6 lives of coal miners and of pollution in all of 

7 our lives is far greater than such short term 

8 private savings. 

9 In addition, utilities are in the 

10 protected position with regulated and relatively 

11 predictable income streams unlike regular private 

12 industry. And our decisions should prioritize 

13 public interest rather than mere profits.

14 If we delay modern emission standards, we 

15 would continue relying on outdated generating 

16 sources. Why should this country of all 

17 countries have old and rusty systems rather than 

18 the very best.

19 By moving to wind and solar generation, 

20 we will gain more and better jobs, lower costs 

21 and lessen climate change. For example, the peak 

22 output of the two gigawatt city power station 

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1 just outside Pittsburgh could come from solar 

2 panel arrays instead of coal for only double the 

3 seven hundred million dollar cost of its proposed 

4 effluent dry scrubber.

5 Alternatively, with current wind 

6 technology the entire U.S.A. could be powered by 

7 an area just six times larger than the central 

8 city of Pittsburgh as proof that strict power 

9 station emission standards work in the U.S.A. 

10 Over the past six years the regional greenhouse 

11 gas initiative of ten northeast states has 

12 obtained lower energy costs and faster economic 

13 growth than the surrounding states. Thus, taking 

14 care of our climate can also make our economy 

15 better off.

16 I applaud the new EPA carbon initiatives 

17 and strongly urge the EPA not to yield to 

18 polluting interests. Yielding would not only be 

19 betraying its duty to protect the public, it 

20 would also be betraying investors in modern 

21 energy systems such as my company, who would be 

22 forced to bear all of the costs singly, due to 

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1 fossil fuel subsidies, this would give a 

2 competitive advantage to more polluting firms.

3 This cannot be in the public interest. A 

4 level and fair playing field, which protects our 

5 population and our climate, will help us all to 

6 claim a bright and sustainable future. Thank 

7 you.

8 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you. Thank you very 

9 much.

10 Okay, at this time our next two speakers 

11 would be Ed Perry and Dan Alters.

12 MR. PERRY: My name is Edward Perry, P, 

13 as in Peter, e-r-r-y. I’m an aquatic biologist 

14 working with the National Wildlife Federation in 

15 their global warming campaign.

16 For many, global warming is something 

17 that’s supposed to be happening years into the 

18 future. As a lifelong fisherman and hunter, I, 

19 and many of us who enjoy the outdoors can tell 

20 you that global warming is here now, and it’s 

21 already affecting our fish and wildlife heritage.

22 According to the best science our state 

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1 fish, the brook trout, our state tree, the 

2 hemlock, and our state bird, the rough grouse, 

3 are on their way out of Pennsylvania. Instead of 

4 getting late winter, early spring snowfalls like 

5 we used to get, we’re now getting torrential 

6 downpours that drench grouse fledglings, causing 

7 significant mortality.

8 In the past thirty years, Pennsylvania 

9 has lost over 28,000 billion snails which has 

10 greatly affected grouse populations. Warmer 

11 winters are allowing the invasive pest, Woolly 

12 Adelgid populations to proliferate and they are 

13 decimating hemlocks all across the northern part 

14 of our country. 

15 Hemlocks provide an important cover for 

16 brook trout during the heat of the summer. So if 

17 the Hemlocks go, so go our state fish. We’ve 

18 already lost over 35 percent of Pennsylvania’s 

19 brook trout habitat, and the forecast is for it 

20 to be gone from the state by the year 2100. 

21 So already, global warming is already 

22 affecting wildlife, not only in Pennsylvania, but 

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1 all across or country, and these are just a few 

2 examples that I’ve mentioned.

3 But let’s look at what’s happening all 

4 around the world right now. And these are not 

5 projections. This is what’s actually happening 

6 right now. We’ve had 350 consecutive months 

7 where the global average temperature has been 

8 above the long term average, and ten of the 

9 hottest years on record have all occurred in the 

10 last fifteen years.

11 If you are less than 30 years old, you 

12 have never had a month or a year where the 

13 temperature was less than the long term global 

14 average.

15 Glaciers around the world are melting. 

16 The Antarctic ice sheets are breaking up at 

17 unprecedented rates, and the Antarctic sea ice is 

18 at it’s all time lowest level in history. Sea 

19 level is rising, causing islands in the Pacific 

20 to go under water.

21 Parts of our southwest are now in the 

22 midst of a 14 year long drought, which many 

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1 scientists think is now the new normal, and it 

2 has spawned raging wildfires.

3 There have been only three times in the 

4 past 50 years when more than nine million acres 

5 have burned and they’ve all been in the last six 

6 years. 

7 And finally, our weather has become far 

8 more extreme, devastating our communities and 

9 causing our government to spend billions in 

10 disaster relief. All of these impacts are being 

11 driven by our dependence on fossil fuels, and we 

12 simply cannot let that continue. These trends 

13 should be our canary in the coal mine that we 

14 ignore at our peril.

15 We have a moral imperative to tackle 

16 climate change and not pass this on to our kids 

17 and grandkids. That’s why I strongly support 

18 your rule to reign in carbon pollution from 

19 existing power plants. But given the speed of 

20 the changes and the gravity of the situation, I 

21 hope you’re not too late. Thank you. 

22 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you. 

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1 MR. ALTERS: My name is Dan Alters, I’m 

2 the Conservation Chair for the Lycoming Audubon 

3 Society. Let me give you a little bit of 

4 background from me. 

5 I have a bachelor’s degree in science 

6 from Wilkes University and a master’s degree in 

7 environmental pollution control from Penn State, 

8 and I worked for 35 years for Pennsylvania’s 

9 Department of Environmental Protection in the 

10 water management area, retiring as the water 

11 manager there seven years ago.

12 I live in rural north central 

13 Pennsylvania, where I regularly hike, hunt, fish, 

14 canoe, bike and birdwatch. I am very concerned 

15 that these activities which I enjoy so much may 

16 one day be severely limited due to climate 

17 change, and I thank EPA today for the opportunity 

18 to comment on its proposed carbon rule.

19 Audubon and its network of 460 Chapters 

20 is committed to conserving and restoring natural 

21 ecosystems, focusing on birds and other wildlife 

22 and their habitats for the benefit of humanity 

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1 and earth’s biological diversity.

2 I want to express our strong support for 

3 EPA’s critical efforts to put limits on carbon 

4 pollution -- I’m sorry, carbon dioxide, and other 

5 pollutants from existing power plants. EPA’s 

6 proposed carbon reduction targets are a strong 

7 start toward reducing emissions.

8 We believe these pollution reductions can 

9 be achieved at a reasonable cost, a cost to our 

10 nation and the world society that we believe is 

11 far less than the cost would be if global warming 

12 remains unchecked. We believe strongly that 

13 worldwide climate change will cause increased 

14 floods and drought, rising sea levels, food 

15 shortages and famine. These are things that all 

16 sound ridiculously terrifying, but these, in 

17 turn, will create huge refugee issues for less 

18 affected countries, and likely new wars and other 

19 human strife.

20 One only needs to review the climate 

21 change contingency planning of our own Department 

22 of Defense for a list of these possibilities. We 

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1 therefore believe more needs to be done. The 

2 proposed goal was too conservative, and the plan 

3 allows far too much time for compliance. 

4 State plans, and especially in 

5 Pennsylvania, should include automatic provisions 

6 to correct any shortfall in emission targets that 

7 may occur, and severe penalties for failing to

8 meet goals. A federal review of state programs 

9 should occur at least every five years. 

10 Finally, it makes no sense at all to 

11 control carbon emissions in this country while we 

12 export millions of tons of coal overseas. We 

13 need to limit coal sales to those countries that 

14 have acceptable plans to control carbon 

15 emissions. Not that EPA can do much about that 

16 though.

17 Finally, Lycoming Audubon is greatly 

18 concerned about the impacts of climate change on 

19 avian species. Birds have long served as key 

20 indicator species of ecosystem hell. America’s 

21 46 million birdwatchers spend roughly 32 billion 

22 dollars every year, generating 85 billion dollars 

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1 in overall economic output, and 13 billion 

2 dollars in tax revenues. 

3 Birdwatching, hunting and other outdoor 

4 activities enjoyed by more than 80 million 

5 Americans support over 2.6 million jobs. These 

6 jobs are at risk if EPA does not effectively 

7 control carbon emissions.

8 Finally, Lycoming Audubon commends the 

9 EPA for its leadership in this critical issue. 

10 We fully support the proposed role and would urge 

11 EPA to make it even stronger. Thank you for 

12 considering these comments.

13 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you. Okay, our next 

14 two speakers this morning will be Paul Sherlock 

15 and Julie Franks.

16 MR. SHERLOCK: Good morning. I’m Paul 

17 Sherlock from Cleveland, Ohio. Thank you for 

18 letting me speak today.

19 MR. WAYLAND: Sure. Thanks for coming.

20 MR. SHERLOCK: Thank you. We have the 

21 opportunity to do something historic, to agree 

22 with the --

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1 MR. WAYLAND: Paul, hold on a second, 

2 let’s see if we can get the noise taken up. 

3 Okay, sorry about that, but I want to 

4 make sure everybody can hear your remarks.

5 MR. SHERLOCK: Thank you. 

6 We have the opportunity to do something 

7 historic, to agree with the scientists who 

8 overwhelmingly say that climate change is real 

9 and to finally begin applying the brakes on a 

10 more is better mind set, to say that we will take 

11 the first small steps in changing our trajectory 

12 and begin to set our eyes on a more sustainable 

13 future.

14 We subsidized the coal industry, and in 

15 doing so, help provide them with profits in order 

16 to protect jobs. It’s time we started providing 

17 the same type of assistance to renewable energy. 

18 To not only level the competitive playing field, 

19 but to foster a new industry that will create 

20 jobs.

21 We are already falling behind in this new 

22 technology. America has long been the country of 

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1 innovation, yet here we are with powerful 

2 interests, digging their heals in at any kind of 

3 change. 

4 Let’s move beyond corporate interests 

5 seeking to protect the fettered calf, buying up 

6 politicians who mouth their words, and embrace 

7 change that is occurring for what will happen 

8 with or without us. And if it happens without 

9 us, then all we will be able to do is follow.

10 That we are even debating establishing 

11 energy standards, calling for an increase in 

12 renewable energy sources, when we have just 

13 learned about methane columns starting to bubble 

14 up from the ocean floor, a condition scientists 

15 have said is an indication we are passing the 

16 point of no return, and harnessing irreversible 

17 climate change is morally wrong to ourselves, to 

18 our fellow Americans and neighbors throughout the 

19 world, to our children and our future 

20 generations.

21 Even that climate change is not 

22 universally accepted outside of the scientific 

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1 realm, can we in good conscience look at our kids 

2 and grandkids and say that the decisions we make 

3 now are intended to benefit them in 30 years? Or 

4 is the position the coal industry is fighting for 

5 more of an indication of short term gain, and a 

6 further indication that our politicians will 

7 support them.

8 We, as a nation, identify ourselves as 

9 Christian, with 77 percent saying they are 

10 believers. For us to continue to rape and 

11 plunder the tremendous gift that God has provided 

12 us is reprehensible. It’s simple. If we 

13 disparage the gift, then we disparage God.

14 We cannot be reverend in church and then 

15 go out and exploit the earth and think that we 

16 are morally right. God has asked us to be 

17 stewards of his gift, not to do with it as we 

18 will.

19 Let us take the first minor steps in 

20 healing our relationship with God by beginning to 

21 heal the planet and turn our back on coal. 

22 Please implement the proposal to increase 

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1 renewable energy standards. Thank you very much.

2 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you. 

3 MS. FRANKS: Good morning. My name is 

4 Julie Franks, F-r-a-n-k-s, and I am here today to 

5 urge the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to 

6 move ahead with its proposed Clean Power Plan. 

7 Setting limits on carbon pollution from existing 

8 power plants will benefit millions of Americans, 

9 especially highly vulnerable groups such as 

10 children, the elderly and those with asthma.

11 I’m speaking today on behalf of my 

12 family, including my two sons who both have 

13 asthma and are here with me today because I know 

14 firsthand how poor air quality can affect daily 

15 life for so many. We live in nearby Butler 

16 County and thank EPA for holding this hearing in 

17 western Pennsylvania where air quality issues 

18 have been challenging for many years.

19 It’s almost August, which means we are 

20 well into summer break from school. For most 

21 kids this is the best time of year. But for my 

22 kids, summer is particularly difficult. Just as 

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1 the weather warms up and they most want to be 

2 outside, air pollution can make it unsafe. In 

3 fact, my son who suffers the most with asthma 

4 needed to spend almost all of 2012 indoors. 

5 That’s the little one.

6 By last summer his doctor was able to 

7 find a blend of four to five different 

8 medications he could take to allow him to play 

9 outside. But the mix of drugs produced unwanted 

10 side effects. We took him off the medications 

11 and he has sense returned to looking outside 

12 watching his friends play without him when air 

13 quality is dangerous.

14 It’s truly heartbreaking to watch your 

15 child go through this every year and to have to 

16 be the one to let them down with the news that 

17 they can’t play outdoors.

18 But on poor air quality days when my 

19 family has to breath fine particles and ozone 

20 smog, the boys’ asthma gets worse and outdoor 

21 activities are not an option. They cough, wheeze 

22 and even have asthma attacks if they breath the 

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1 unsafe air.

2 These asthma attacks can be incredibly 

3 scary, as any parent with an asthmatic child 

4 knows. And my family lives in constant state of 

5 alert. We do all we can to manage their 

6 condition, but the quality of air they breathe is 

7 out of our hands. As you might imagine, I am 

8 eager for action that would improve our air 

9 quality and the quality of life for my kids and 

10 so many others. 

11 Kids are more vulnerable to the impacts 

12 of air pollution than adults, and it’s our 

13 responsibility to protect them. 

14 I want my kids to be able to breathe 

15 freely, and run and play outside as children 

16 should. And the proposed Clean Power Plan will 

17 ensure that healthy future. I’m thankful that we 

18 have the protections like the Clean Air Act in 

19 place, but there is still a good deal of work to 

20 do. 

21 I want EPA and Congress to know that 

22 clean air safeguards, like reducing carbon 

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1 emissions from the power plants, make a 

2 difference in the lives of millions of people 

3 around the country like me and my family. I hope 

4 that all parents will speak up and deliver this 

5 message that we want clean air for our kids. 

6 Thank you for the opportunity to speak 

7 and support the proposed carbon pollution plan 

8 today. As someone who cares deeply about both my 

9 children and the air quality of our air, I urge 

10 you to move forward with these lifesaving 

11 standards. Thank you very much.

12 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you. Our next two 

13 speakers will be Kevin Stewart and Shannon Fisk.

14 MR. STEWART: Good morning. I thank the 

15 panel for your work here today. I have provided 

16 you a more detailed written version of my 

17 testimony.

18 I am Kevin Stewart, S-t-e-w-a-r-t, and I 

19 serve as Director of Environmental Health with 

20 the American Lung Association of the Mid21 Atlantic. 

22 I represent not only the three million 

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1 people in our four state service area who suffer 

2 from chronic lung disease, but also the tens of 

3 millions more who desire to breathe clean air and 

4 still protect their good health.

5 There are standards, and properly so for 

6 air toxics, acid gasses, heavy metals, smog 

7 forming and soot forming emissions from power 

8 plants, and there is no excuse for there not to 

9 be strong standards for carbon pollution as well. 

10 Anything less short changes our health and our 

11 children’s health. 

12 We are here today to remind everyone of 

13 why we need strong controls on carbon pollution 

14 and on air pollution in general. Reducing carbon 

15 pollution will help protect public health. 

16 Carbon pollution results in higher 

17 temperatures that enhance the conditions for 

18 ozone formation and for lengthening the ozone 

19 season. As the lung associations stated, the air 

20 report recently demonstrated by showing an 

21 increase in days of unhealthful ozone at nearly 

22 every monitor in our service area. We cannot 

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1 rest assured that ozone levels will always 

2 continue to diminish.

3 We also recognize other consequences, 

4 higher temperatures and CO2 resulting in 

5 increased emissions of pollutants and their 

6 precursors. Increased pollen and mold spore 

7 production exacerbating asthma and allergies, 

8 increasing risk of wildfires and their pollution, 

9 increasing vector borne diseases, increasing 

10 potential for severe weather events and resulting 

11 health problems.

12 By 2030 under the Clean Power Plan, not 

13 only do the climate benefits alone from CO2 

14 reductions amount to about 30 billion dollars 

15 annually, but the corresponding health 

16 co-benefits are valuated at up to twice as much 

17 as the climate benefit portion. And those annual 

18 total benefits accrue to a range between six and 

19 twelve times the accompanying and compliance 

20 costs. 

21 Moreover, according to Syracuse and 

22 Harvard University’s co-benefits report, model 

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1 results consistently show air quality 

2 improvements in western Pennsylvania projected to 

3 occur under this rule to be among the largest in 

4 the country.

5 While the American Lung Association 

6 supports the Clean Power Plan, we find that 

7 certain improvements in its target formulas would 

8 strengthen it. EPA should drive energy 

9 efficiency and renewable energy generation to 

10 displace the generation from the dubious fossil

11 fuels and therefore, targets should be set 

12 higher.

13 Many emissions reduction measures are 

14 already occurring in the states, so the formulas 

15 need to account for that. For example, states 

16 are already using higher energy efficiency 

17 measures. Utilities have already planned 

18 replacements of old high emitting power plants 

19 with lower emitting resources. New natural gas 

20 plants are already planned.

21 Excluding biomass combustion base the 

22 inclusion of a wide variety of clean renewable 

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1 generation in the formulas on resource 

2 availability rather than limited to currently 

3 mandated levels and include opportunities for 

4 transmission and distribution efficiency 

5 improvements.

6 The bottom line is this. EPA must make 

7 certain that its standards do not simply tally 

8 reductions that would have been achieved even had 

9 the Clean Power Plan not been in place. I must 

10 stress we are in the midst of a slow motion 

11 crisis of global proportions. It is to be sure 

12 irregular and intermittent in its progression. 

13 As a result, many are apt to deceive 

14 themselves and others about the necessity for 

15 serious action. But the crisis is real, and on 

16 the scale of decades, it is inexorable.

17 So the objective here must not be one of 

18 doing the minimum necessary to meet some 

19 arithmetic goal, but rather one of finding ways 

20 to do as much as possible to reduce the severity 

21 of the impacts already on their way.

22 People at special risk of sickness or 

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1 even death from air pollution include infants, 

2 children, the elderly, persons with asthma or 

3 COPD, those who are immune compromised and people 

4 in indigent and minority communities.

5 In our service territory, these 

6 populations are constituted of groups containing 

7 even millions of individuals. Far from being the 

8 small minority of particularly sensitive persons, 

9 persons falling into one or more of these high 

10 risk groups together compose more than half the 

11 population.

12 And even more important to remember, as 

13 you heard a few minutes ago from Mrs. Franks, 

14 these are not faceless numbers. Every one of 

15 these millions is a real person, not a nameless 

16 statistic. Every one of these people is a human 

17 being worthy of our protection.

18 MR. FISK: Good morning. My name is 

19 Shannon Fisk and I’m the Director of the Coal 

20 Program at Earthjustice. Earthjustice is a 

21 non-profit environmental law firm that uses the 

22 power of the law to protect public health and the 

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1 environment, to advance clean energy, and to 

2 combat climate change. We will be submitting 

3 written comments by the deadline but wanted to 

4 share some initial thoughts today.

5 Earthjustice applauds EPA from moving 

6 forward with the proposed Clean Power Plan. As 

7 we learn more each day about the threat and pace 

8 of climate change, the need for rapid and 

9 significant reductions in U.S. carbon pollution 

10 becomes more imperative. 

11 The Clean Power Plan is an important step 

12 towards achieving such reductions and we strongly 

13 support EPA in regulating carbon pollution.

14 Given the urgency of the climate threat 

15 we face, however, we urge EPA to set the stronger 

16 standards that we know states can achieve. That 

17 requires setting more protective goals, ensuring 

18 that the baselines don’t effectively credit 

19 states with carbon reduction that is going to 

20 occur anyways, and setting forth clear and 

21 practical enforceability provisions.

22 Before briefly detailing these points, I 

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1 want to thank you for holding this hearing here 

2 in Pittsburgh. For decades, Southwest 

3 Pennsylvania has borne the brunt of the severe 

4 public health and environmental impacts caused by 

5 the mining and burning of the most carbon 

6 intensive energy source, which is coal.

7 As such, it is only appropriate that EPA 

8 take public feedback in this community. There 

9 is, understandably, anxiety in this region about 

10 the economic impacts of the ongoing move away 

11 from dirty and aging coal infrastructure while 

12 the move to clean energy will spur job creation 

13 and economic growth throughout the U.S.

14 Earthjustice would welcome a serious 

15 discussion, and ways to ensure a just transition 

16 for the workers and communities that currently 

17 rely on the coal industry for their livelihoods.

18 Unfortunately, rather than engaging in 

19 such a serious discussion, opponents of the Clean 

20 Power Plan had been offering little more than 

21 climate denial and fear mongering about electric 

22 bills and reliability. The climate denial 

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1 represents nothing more than willfully putting 

2 ones head in the sand to ignore the overwhelming 

3 scientific evidence of the climate crisis we 

4 face.

5 And the opponents fear mongering about 

6 electric bills and reliability has little basis 

7 in reality, and would hinder us from seizing the 

8 economic and public health opportunities that a 

9 move to clean energy would provide.

10 The real concern about the Clean Power 

11 Plan is that it doesn’t do enough. Rather than 

12 spurring immediate and significant action that is 

13 achievable and needed, the plan focuses too much, 

14 in our opinion, on endorsing advances that are 

15 already occurring.

16 In an effort to address this shortcoming, 

17 we urge EPA to strengthen the proposal in at 

18 least three ways. 

19 First, EPA must have stronger and faster 

20 pollution reduction targets. The currently 

21 proposed targets give states fifteen years to 

22 achieve reductions in carbon pollution from 2005 

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1 levels that we are already halfway to achieving. 

2 Both the science and the President’s 

3 pledge to reduce overall U.S. carbon pollution by 

4 2020 requires far more from the Clean Power Plan. 

5 We urge that reductions of 35 to 40 percent from 

6 the energy sector below 2005 levels be required 

7 by 2020, and greater reductions by 2030.

8 In addition, the proposed ten-year 

9 averaging for compliance needs to be broken down 

10 into more than one compliance schedule so short 

11 term gains are realized and the program stays on 

12 track to meet its goals.

13 Second, EPA must reevaluate the baseline 

14 it uses to set the state pollution reduction 

15 goals. As such, baseline fails to account for 

16 progress that is already occurring, and thereby 

17 leads to results that underestimate what is 

18 readily achievable.

19 For example, EPA proposal assumes nearly 

20 49 gigawatts of coal plant retirements throughout 

21 the country by 2020, but nearly 68 gigawatts of 

22 coal plants have already retired or announced 

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1 their intent to do so.

2 Here in Pennsylvania, the 2020 coal plan 

3 emissions baseline EPA uses includes 11 coal 

4 plants that have already retired or announced 

5 their intent to retire in the next few years.

6 If we remove those emissions from the 11 

7 plants from the 2012 baseline, that baseline is 

8 already below the level of carbon pollution EPA 

9 assumed Pennsylvania could achieve through the 

10 redispatching of coal plants.

11 In other words, EPA’s carbon proposal 

12 would have little further direct impact on 

13 generation of electricity from the most carbon 

14 intensive form of power, which is coal.

15 My third point today is that practical 

16 enforceability is critical through a successful 

17 Clean Power Plan. If someone is to work for more 

18 than a decade on enforcing our nation’s 

19 environmental laws, I know well that even the 

20 best environmental standards can become largely 

21 meaningless if the public and EPA are not able to 

22 monitor compliance and seek enforcement.

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1 As such, we urge EPA to ensure that any 

2 final rule clearly establishes who is ultimately 

3 responsible for achieving carbon pollution 

4 reductions, ensures that the public has the right 

5 to seek enforcement of those requirements 

6 through, for example, citizen supervisions, and 

7 set forth clear self-correction provisions and 

8 penalties for non-compliance. 

9 In closing, we urge EPA to strengthen the 

10 Clean Power Plan and exponentially finalize it so 

11 that we can address the critical need to rapidly 

12 reduce our nation’s carbon pollution.

13 Thank you again for holding this hearing 

14 and giving me the opportunity to comment. 

15 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you both.

16 MR. GARVIN: Thanks.

17 MR. WAYLAND: Okay, our next two speakers 

18 this morning will be Jim Probst and Cathy Cohen 

19 Becker.

20 MR. PROBST: My name is Jim Probst. I’m 

21 from West Virginia. I got up at three o’clock 

22 this morning to come to have the opportunity to 

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1 say something. I’m here as a father and as a 

2 grandfather. I would very much like for you to 

3 implement these regulations that are being 

4 considered and hopefully that you will consider 

5 strengthening them.

6 Climate change is already upon us. It’s 

7 irreversible. Greenhouse gases are building up 

8 in our atmosphere and will remain there for 

9 centuries. 

10 Many people argue that moving away from 

11 fossil fuels will harm our economy and impede 

12 growth. Actually, the cost of inaction is much 

13 greater than the cost of action. By 2050 48 to 

14 68 billion dollars' worth of property will be 

15 below sea level in Florida and Louisiana. 

16 I would urge you to not only implement 

17 these regulations, but hopefully it would 

18 consider a fee on carbon be instituted, on carbon 

19 emissions. The recent study prepared for the 

20 group, Citizen’s Climate Lobby by Regional 

21 Economic Models shows that the implementation of 

22 increasing fee on carbon emissions with a hundred 

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1 percent of the fees collected rebated to U.S. 

2 households would actually create 2.1 million jobs 

3 over the first ten years. It would save 13,000 

4 lives a year from reduced emissions and increase 

5 real disposal income.

6 It is highly unlikely that as climate 

7 change continues damage will not increase in a 

8 straight line, but will increase in an upward 

9 sloping curve that will become catastrophically 

10 steep as a result of negative feedback loops.

11 If nothing is done soon the government 

12 will be forced to deal with these issues in a 

13 much greater magnitude later from property losses 

14 to public health crises to emergency aide.

15 We face a choice now between protecting 

16 our economy by protecting our environment or 

17 allowing environmental havoc to create economic 

18 havoc. Thank you. 

19 MS. BECKER: Hi. My name is Cathy Cowen 

20 Becker. I’m a communications coordinator and 

21 student living in Columbus, Ohio.

22 The reason I’m testifying today is that 

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1 I’m very concerned about the future, not just of 

2 Ohio or the United States, but really of the 

3 entire global environment and every creature, 

4 including seven billion humans that live in it.

5 For the past four years I’ve been taking 

6 classes in biology and environment and natural 

7 resources at Ohio State University, and what I’ve 

8 learned is frightening. 

9 I’ve learned about the natural carbon 

10 cycle that has been operating on the planet since 

11 it began and how it’s been thrown out of balance 

12 since the Industrial Revolution by the burning of 

13 fossil fuels.

14 Animals and plants evolved in symbiosis. 

15 We breathe in the oxygen they produce and they 

16 use the carbon dioxide we breathe out to make 

17 food through photosynthesis. 

18 However, our use of fossil fuels is 

19 adding more carbon to the atmosphere than the 

20 plants can possibly absorb. And when you look at 

21 what we’re doing you can see why. Over billions 

22 of years plants and animals have died and 

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1 decomposed to create coal and oil fields. But 

2 just in the last 200 years humans have dug up 

3 much of this carbon and put it back into the 

4 atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels. So of 

5 course, we’re knocking the carbon cycle out of 

6 balance.

7 I’ve also learned about the ice core 

8 research, much of it done by my university. By 

9 drilling into ice glaciers in places like 

10 Antarctica, Greenland and Peru, scientists have 

11 been able to reconstruct what the atmosphere was 

12 like going back over 800,000 years. At no time 

13 did the amount of carbon get above 280 parts per 

14 million until the last few decades.

15 It’s now over 400 parts per million, 

16 which is well above the threshold of 350 that 

17 NASA’s climate scientist, James Hansen, thinks is 

18 the maximum to support the environment in which 

19 human civilization evolved.

20 Another thing I’ve learned about is what 

21 all this carbon in the atmosphere is doing to the 

22 planet. About 90 percent of it has ended up in 

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1 the oceans leading to ocean acidification which 

2 destroys coral reefs and seashells. Considering 

3 that the base of the world’s food chain is 

4 comprised of tiny plankton with exoskeletons made 

5 up of these shells, this puts all life at risk, 

6 including us.

7 There have been five mass extinctions 

8 during the earth’s history, and many scientists 

9 believe we are entering a sixth. They have a 

10 name for this new era, the Anthropocene. If 

11 aliens visited the earth millions of years from 

12 now they would be able to see our human footprint 

13 long after we’re gone due to the changed chemical 

14 and physical composition of the environment that 

15 we leave behind.

16 What I’ve learned about carbon pollution 

17 and what it's doing to the entire earth system 

18 has motivated me to seek a change in careers. 

19 This fall I’m starting a master’s program in 

20 public policy so that I can spend the rest of my 

21 working life advocating for the environment.

22 We simply must stop burning fossil fuels 

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1 or we will tip the entire global environment into 

2 a state not seen for millions of years, long 

3 before human civilization evolved.

4 If we want a livable future for our 

5 children, we must act on climate now. Climate 

6 change is the greatest physical and ethical 

7 challenge of our time, and the EPA carbon 

8 pollution standards are a good first step to 

9 address them.

10 I strongly support these standards and 

11 urge you to even strengthen them.

12 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you. Our next two 

13 speakers this morning will be Mark Klutho and 

14 Peggy Coyle.

15 MR. KLUTHO: Mark Klutho, M-a-r-k, 

16 K-l-u-t-h-o. I was in D.C. yesterday, both the 

17 hearing rooms. It appears the chandeliers are 

18 all incandescent bulbs. Not going to be able to 

19 get there when the EPA headquarters can’t even 

20 get the light bulbs right.

21 And what do I see here? Three bulbs in 

22 each fixture. Here is this neat book from the 

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1 NRC and I have this page marked. This fixture, I 

2 used it as a little quiz, had it before the 

3 Florida Public Service Commission. They couldn’t 

4 get it right. How many bulbs in the fixture? 

5 They didn’t know.

6 There is only one bulb. This is what’s 

7 called an imaging specular reflector. Two of 

8 those are a reflection of one bulb. Now, you go 

9 throughout this building here, a federal 

10 building, and you count how many bulbs there are 

11 wasting energy. And this is open to 832. This 

12 is the Generic Environmental Impact Statement for 

13 License Renewal of Nuclear Plants, energy 

14 conservation, energy efficiency. 

15 Though often used interchangeably, energy 

16 conservation and energy efficiency are different 

17 concepts. Energy efficiency typically means 

18 deriving the similar level of service by using 

19 less energy, while energy conversation simply 

20 indicates a reduction in energy consumption.

21 These words are used commonly as though 

22 they mean the same thing. 

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1 My point here is the vernacular, you 

2 can’t even get that right. Just as though a wind 

3 turbine with three blades isn’t really a turbine. 

4 Look at a damn or what flies an airplane. Those 

5 are turbines. You can’t get the terminology 

6 right.

7 Now the problem is. you’re putting the 

8 cart before the horse, and Amory Lovins -- you 

9 might have heard of him -- when I went into D.C., 

10 the first building I saw was the Pentagon. He 

11 helped do the retrofit of the building to make it 

12 more energy efficient, likewise, the White House.

13 And he said we’re not looking to see how 

14 much energy we can use, we’re looking for a hot 

15 shower and a cold beer. Energy should be a means 

16 and not an end. 

17 So what you do is you make all of your 

18 houses, all of your schools, all of your 

19 hospitals, all of your federal buildings, all of 

20 your community centers, all of your libraries, 

21 all of your buildings energy efficient, and then 

22 the stupid power plants don’t have to put the 

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1 carbon into the atmosphere.

2 But when we have the EPA burning 

3 incandescent bulbs, you’re not going to get 

4 there. It won’t happen, see? Here is this 

5 National Geographic special, “Energy for 

6 Tomorrow”, and Amory Lovins is interviewed here, 

7 and he’s asked about this term that he came up 

8 with, “megawatts”, why are they so important? 

9 And he says because on average they cost you 

10 eight times less than it does to produce a watt 

11 of electricity. Neat thing here, they put him at 

12 the end. 

13 So this is the only way we’re going to 

14 make this country move again, not by working on 

15 the stupid dumb power plants. You go to where 

16 the power plants are made to be the stupid power 

17 plants. The stupid houses.

18 I mean when I went into D.C. and I saw 

19 the stupid construction that was happening, but 

20 look at this light fixture here with the imaging 

21 specular reflector, it becomes a one bulb 

22 fixture. It’s so simple, insulating the mass. 

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1 The country needs to be rebuilt. You 

2 know what needs to happen will, you know, just 

3 dwarf what the new deal was. It’s the only thing 

4 that’s going to work, not fixing power plants.

5 And by the way, the idea about the nukes 

6 in Georgia, and over there in Finland after they 

7 said oh, we now have it all figured out, we’re 

8 not going to have cost overruns anymore, and 

9 we’re going to get these plants finished on time. 

10 It is not happening.

11 I can remember when I was a little kid 

12 back in the 50's, I heard that nuclear power was 

13 going to be too cheap to meter. Didn’t happen. 

14 Didn’t happen.

15 Well, when I’ve gone before the NRC and 

16 the Public Service Commission down in Florida, 

17 I’ve had my dice with me, and I’ve taken the dice 

18 and I’ve thrown it on the floor in front of them. 

19 That’s what you’re doing, you’re rolling the 

20 dice. Tried and true efficiency, efficiency is 

21 the answer to create millions of jobs to put 

22 money in peoples’ pockets, living wage jobs to 

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1 make the country work again, jobs that are not 

2 exported. Right now the talk is putting the cart 

3 before the horse.

4 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you. 

5 MS. COYLE: Hello. Excuse me voice. 

6 Good morning, my name is Peggy Coyle, C-o-y-l-e. 

7 I’m a registered nurse from Ann Arbor, Michigan. 

8 I’m a climate reality project climate presenter, 

9 a member of Health Fellowship Climate and Ecology 

10 Center in Ann Arbor, and I’m also active in 

11 several community climate action groups.

12 Two years ago I returned to Michigan 

13 after working seven years as a health care 

14 professional in Vietnam. During most of that 

15 time I lived in Ho Chi Minh City, which is in 

16 south Vietnam, and as you know, that’s one of the 

17 regions of the world where a very large 

18 population lives at or below sea level.

19 This region always makes the shortlist of 

20 places predicted to face a crisis caused by 

21 rising sea levels.

22 It was during my time living there that I 

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1 became aware of the changes in the environment 

2 and of the possible reasons that were causing 

3 them. I saw worsening floods each year, 

4 especially during the rainy season, when heavy 

5 rainfall combined with high tides flooded most of 

6 the city and made the city streets impassable for 

7 the millions of motorbikes that make up the 

8 normal traffic there.

9 The quality of air in Vietnam is also 

10 very poor. It’s rapidly developing manufactured 

11 economy and unregulated traffic pollution pour 

12 toxic fumes into the air and warm the atmosphere. 

13 But Vietnam is not in a position to lead the 

14 world’s response to our warming climate and a 

15 polluted environment. 

16 We, in the United States, should 

17 certainly be taking strong steps to address this 

18 problem, and in doing so set an example for the 

19 other countries. I’m very happy to see the EPA 

20 proposal to cap the carbon emissions from power 

21 plants. Reducing the carbon pollution from these 

22 plants is the best way for the U.S. to begin to 

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1 reduce the risk of climate change, because these 

2 emissions make up 40 percent of our nation’s 

3 climate pollution.

4 This is the fastest way to make us 

5 healthier and to impeded climate disruption. The 

6 health effects of this pollution are many. 

7 Additionally, warming climate leads to extreme 

8 weather events, which also put our health at

9 risk. More and more people are being affected, 

10 and the most vulnerable are elderly and our 

11 children.

12 The U.S. CDC describes likely health 

13 effects of increased temperature and extreme 

14 weather. They warn us of many possible effects. 

15 Heat exposure has a range of health effects from 

16 mild heat rash to deadly heat stroke. Heat 

17 exposure can also aggravate several chronic 

18 diseases, including cardiovascular and 

19 respiratory disease. The results can be severe 

20 and result in both increased illness and death. 

21 Heat also increases ground level ozone 

22 concentrations, causing direct lung injury and 

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1 increasing the severity of respiratory diseases 

2 such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary 

3 disease.

4 The CDC also warns that climate change 

5 will affect the air quality through several 

6 pathways, including the production and allergen 

7 in the city of aeroallergens, such as pollen and 

8 mold spores, and increases in regional ambient 

9 concentrations of ozone, fine particles and dust.

10 Some of these pollutants can directly 

11 cause respiratory disease or exacerbate 

12 respiratory disease in susceptible individuals. 

13 Early flower blooming resulting from 

14 temperature increases and increased carbon 

15 dioxide concentrations affects the timing of 

16 distribution of aeroallergens such as pollen 

17 through plant photosynthesis and metabolism. 

18 There is also a possibility that these certain 

19 aeroallergens may become more allergenic as the 

20 temperatures and the CO2 increase. 

21 These are just a few of the many ways 

22 that are already known that our health will be 

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1 affected by the effects of increasing carbon 

2 emissions. It’s a vitally important challenge 

3 that we take strong steps where we can to impede 

4 this system of climate change. These new 

5 regulations are an important and welcome step 

6 towards changing this moment. Thank you. 

7 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you. At this time 

8 we’re going to take a brief five-minute break, so 

9 we’ll adjourn the hearing for five minutes and 

10 we’ll get under way at the end of that break. 

11 Thank you. 

12 [Recess taken from 11:37 to 11:47 a.m.]

13 MR. WAYLAND: As soon as I get that 

14 information we’ll pass it along. We’re obviously 

15 not going to exclude anybody from speaking. 

16 Logistically, we’re just trying to figure out how 

17 it’s best to get people in and out of the 

18 building in an efficient manner. So, but now 

19 we’re going to proceed with the hearing and we’re 

20 going to take it from there.

21 Actually, I’ve got the answer, so before 

22 we start, we’re going to have six more speakers 

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1 before the lunch break, and then we will be in 

2 recess until 1:00 p.m. this afternoon. And with 

3 that, Robin Wilson and Laura Yokochi.

4 MR. WILSON: My name is Robin Wilson, 

5 W-i-l-s-o-n, and I’m very supportive of the EPA 

6 Clean Power Plant initiative, and I’m also 

7 supportive of you all that are doing all this 

8 work to take the testimonies, I appreciate that.

9 I’m a science teacher and I’ve done lots 

10 of research on the climate issue, and I’ve taken 

11 classes on global warming, and I feel a strong 

12 urge to do something about this. I feel like 

13 it’s a real crisis for our culture, so I’m so 

14 happy that there’s public attention being brought 

15 to this issue.

16 I know the EPA has been very good about 

17 talking about rising temperature and rising sea 

18 levels and more intense floods and droughts, and 

19 disease epidemics, and species extinction. And 

20 the only thing I would add to that would be that 

21 I think there’s a real danger that our democracy 

22 and our economy could collapse under the crisis 

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1 of climate change. So I feel a strong need that 

2 we ramp up our efforts to change, to reverse 

3 climate change.

4 I think we can do it. I think one of the 

5 examples is during World War II -- I was born in 

6 World War II, so we had a response at that point, 

7 which was total. Industry changed. The people 

8 became much more willing to make changes in their 

9 life. We had a victory garden, my family did. 

10 And so I feel like we need that kind of 

11 commitment now to deal with this crisis. 

12 And it’s hard to do. I think it will be 

13 a test of human nature, whether we can mobilize 

14 against a threat that we haven’t experienced the 

15 worst of it yet. In other words, we’ve 

16 experienced some climate change but not very 

17 much. But in order to solve the problem, we’re 

18 going to have to be able to project out and do 

19 something now to keep preventing it from a 

20 terrible situation happening later.

21 So the -- in West Virginia I’ve worked on 

22 the issue of policy. And just so you get a sense 

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1 of what’s happening in West Virginia, the last 

2 legislative session we had House Bill 4346, which 

3 said that the EPA cannot enforce the Clean Power 

4 Plant provisions in West Virginia, and it seemed 

5 to me that was tragic. Rather than getting 

6 together and saying what’s the best possible way 

7 we can make this work for us, there’s a lot of 

8 polarization, I’m sure you’ve heard some of it 

9 here. 

10 But I think we need to get over it, and 

11 I’m a candidate for the West Virginia Senate, and 

12 I was endorsed by the United Mine Workers of 

13 America, and I felt good about that, because I 

14 feel like environmentalists and union people, 

15 miners, we all need to learn how to talk to each 

16 other and try to figure out some common solutions 

17 for these issues.

18 But anyway, when I went to the committee 

19 meetings on that, the legislation 4346, it passed 

20 unopposed. There was basically nobody in the 

21 legislature willing to say that they’re actually 

22 hurting -- you’re going to hurt West Virginia if 

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1 you implement this thing. Because in my reading 

2 of the law, it gives lots of leeway for states to 

3 implement the goals to their own liking. 

4 So we could develop an exciting energy 

5 efficiency program, we could do renewables in 

6 West Virginia. There’s all kinds of things we 

7 could do if we -- to meet the 2030 goals of the 

8 30 percent reduction. There’s all kinds of ways 

9 we could do something about that, and I think 

10 it’s sad that people are just trying to say we

11 don’t even want to try, we’re not even going to 

12 do it.

13 And I think there are some community 

14 models that go along with policy. I think we 

15 need a three prong approach. We need the policy 

16 that the EPA is working on, and then we need 

17 community solutions, which I’m very excited 

18 about. My wife and I put on solar panels in the 

19 field in our house near Spencer, West Virginia, 

20 and we have generated 15 kilowatt hours of 

21 electricity. We have a surplus with the power 

22 company.

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1 And my analogy is if you’re going down 

2 the interstate and you want to take an off ramp, 

3 it’s easier for you if that off ramp is well lit. 

4 And so what we’re trying to do is build community 

5 models of what it would look like to have a 

6 sustainable world. In other words, people say, 

7 “Oh, you’re going to take jobs away from miners,” 

8 but I think we can prove that there’s going to be 

9 many more jobs created in finding solutions to 

10 the problem. And like I said, I’m very pro 

11 miner, I just think we need to find positive 

12 solutions. 

13 When the asbestos industry was looking at 

14 the health issues around asbestos, they said “No, 

15 it’s not true,” and they denied it and denied it 

16 and denied it. And then the asbestos miners were 

17 out of a job, the companies were bankrupt, and 

18 the same thing could happen with the whole issue 

19 of coal. 

20 So does that red light mean I’m close to 

21 the end of my time? Okay. Anyway, I wanted to 

22 thank you very much and I appreciate what you’re 

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1 doing.

2 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you, sir.

3 MS. YOKOCHI: Hello, my name is Laura 

4 Yokochi, Y-o-k-o-c-h-i. I’d like to thank the 

5 group for giving us the opportunity to speak.

6 I’m from Salem, West Virginia and I’m 

7 here to express my whole hearted support for the 

8 new EPA carbon rules. I believe these rules will 

9 be a giant step in the right direction. They 

10 don’t go far enough, but they are a step in the 

11 right direction.

12 I’d like to thank the EPA for finally 

13 taking some action. The flexibility of the rules 

14 for each state will make it really easy to 

15 comply. So there really should be no excuse for 

16 any state to resist these new standards.

17 I think it’s time for West Virginia to be 

18 part of the solution rather than part of the 

19 problem. In fact, I think the new guidelines 

20 will provide an opportunity for our state to 

21 build a better future. 

22 There are some who believe that coal and 

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1 natural gas are the most important resources in 

2 West Virginia, and what’s good for the fossil 

3 fuel industry is good for our state. I really 

4 disagree with that. I think it’s time to put the 

5 health and safety of our people, who are our 

6 greatest resource, ahead of financial profits.

7 If we can wean ourselves away from over 

8 dependence on non-renewable resources, we can 

9 improve our health, our economy and preserve 

10 rather than exploit the natural beauty of our 

11 state.

12 I’d like to see a future where the 

13 quality of air and water, which are our most 

14 precious and life giving resources, are more 

15 important to our politicians than the campaign 

16 donations they receive from industries who would 

17 like to destroy these resources.

18 I’d like to turn on the lights in my home 

19 and know that my electricity is not produced 

20 through the destruction of our mountains. I 

21 would like to live in a place where the economy 

22 is diverse and geothermal, wind and solar are 

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1 thriving industries which provide safe and secure 

2 employment.

3 Instead of clinging to our out molded 

4 ways of producing energy, which has brought us to 

5 this crisis, we need to work together for a 

6 better future. This is the 21st century and we 

7 can do better.

8 Thank you for helping us to do that and 

9 thanks for this opportunity.

10 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you. Okay, our next 

11 two speakers this morning will be Lyle Ray 

12 Roberts and Randy Cunningham.

13 MR. ROBERTS: First of all, thank you for 

14 creating this time to listen. We all learn when 

15 diverse viewpoints are heard.

16 MR. WAYLAND: Would you state your name 

17 for the --

18 MR. ROBERTS: My name is Lyle Ray 

19 Roberts, R-a-y R-o-b-e-r-t-s. And I’m the father 

20 of two awesome daughters, ages eight and eleven, 

21 and it’s because of them that I can no longer 

22 stay silent, and also why I’ve worked to start a 

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1 Pittsburgh Chapter of Citizen’s Climate Lobby. 

2 It’s a non-partisan group dedicated to creating 

3 the political will to address climate change.

4 I, and Citizen’s Climate Lobby, support 

5 the EPA and the Obama Administration in taking 

6 serious actions to address global warming. 

7 However, I’m sad and angry that Congress has 

8 failed to act and forced the EPA to implement 

9 these rules.

10 The costs of Congressional inaction are 

11 growing each year, and not in a linear way. The 

12 costs are growing exponentially, and they’re 

13 becoming more and more personal, too. This year 

14 I suffered my first asthma attack, so I thank the 

15 EPA for stepping up and doing what needs to be 

16 done.

17 Unfortunately, the EPA rules are a blunt 

18 club of a tool compared to the laser scalpel of a 

19 legislative solution. A recently published study 

20 from MIT backs up this statement and I want to 

21 introduce a copy with my statement today.

22 I call on our Congress to step up and 

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1 enact a market based revenue neutral carbon tax, 

2 using a fee and dividend approach such as 

3 Citizen’s Climate Lobby advocates. Comparing 

4 apples to apples, the EPA’s blunt rules will 

5 reduce only 12.7 percent of CO2 compared to a 

6 revenue neutral carbon fee and dividend that 

7 would reduce CO2 by 33 percent below 2005 levels 

8 by 2020.

9 I believe those legislatures who are 

10 complaining the loudest about the EPA’s power 

11 plant rules need to do their jobs and pass a law 

12 that does a better job than these EPA rules.

13 The Independent Economic Modeling Group, 

14 REMI, has studied this legislation recommended by 

15 Citizen’s Climate Lobby and found that it would 

16 grow our economy, it would create 2.1 million new 

17 jobs and save 13,000 lives per year. Here is a 

18 summary of that report.

19 However, the EPA’s Power Plant Rules, 

20 while maybe not my first preference, or the MIT 

21 study’s first preference, I do support them and 

22 they are a genuine step in the right direction, 

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1 which is far better than the epic failure of our 

2 Congress to act. 

3 I have three requests. First, I wish to 

4 introduce recently published research from the 

5 London School of Economics that raises three huge 

6 problems with the dice mathematical model used by 

7 the U.S. Government to set a price for the social 

8 costs of carbon.

9 These problems are that technology can’t 

10 bounce back following repeated and increasing 

11 climate related disasters. 

12 Two, failing to consider climate tipping 

13 points for which global warming acts like pouring 

14 gasoline on a bonfire.

15 And the third major problem is there are 

16 unexpected and unforeseen problems. 

17 When I leave my house every day, I don’t 

18 expect it to burn down, but I still have fire 

19 insurance. Currently, we’re using a mathematical 

20 model that assumes nothing unexpected ever goes 

21 wrong.

22 If the dice model for pricing carbon is 

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1 adjusted, it clearly points out the EPA’s current 

2 carbon price of $38 per ton is way too low.

3 Please increase your carbon price. I 

4 agree with the London School of Economics and I 

5 believe your price on carbon is dangerously low.

6 My second request, please include any 

7 recommendations for how states might satisfy the 

8 EPA rules, a revenue neutral carbon tax using the 

9 fee and dividend approach similar to the 

10 legislation that Citizen’s Climate Lobby 

11 advocates for.

12 I believe that if this form of carbon tax 

13 is implemented on a state by state level, the 

14 economic benefits would push other states or our 

15 entire nation to follow suit.

16 Third, I believe there needs to be EPA 

17 rules to address the incredibly potent greenhouse 

18 gas of methane. Here in Pittsburgh, we have an 

19 aging infrastructure that leaks methane, and for 

20 every ton of CO2 the EPA rules prevent, and the 

21 equivalent amount of methane is 80 times more 

22 destructive in our atmosphere. Rules on other 

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1 greenhouse gases are necessary next steps.

2 The EPA is being forced to lead in taking 

3 action on climate change. It is a moral 

4 obligation, not only to every citizen in our 

5 country, but to my daughters and to all the 

6 children in our nation.

7 The greedy and most profitable companies 

8 in the history of the planet are rallying against 

9 you, but you are doing the right thing and you 

10 have my support. Thank you. 

11 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you. 

12 MR. RANDY CUNNINGHAM: Good morning. My 

13 name is Randy Cunningham. I live at 3623 West 

14 Boulevard, Cleveland, Ohio, 44111. My phone 

15 number is 216-245-1073. 

16 I am Chair of the Coal and Energy 

17 Committee of the Northeast Ohio Sierra Club 

18 Group, and a member of the Cleveland Environment 

19 Action Network.

20 My views expressed here are my own. I 

21 wish to speak in favor of the proposed standards. 

22 The primary virtue is that they are the first 

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1 steps we have seen in dealing with the issue of 

2 climate change since the disastrous collapse of 

3 climate legislation in Congress during the summer 

4 of 2010.

5 We were buttress on negotiating position 

6 in the next year in conclave on the climate. 

7 They are at least something in a policy 

8 environment that has offered us nothing.

9 Their primary advice is that they are 

10 nowhere near what it would take to protect us 

11 from the consequences of climate change. But we 

12 should not let the good get in the way of the 

13 inadequate.

14 That inadequacy is shown and what they do 

15 not take into consideration, the revolution of 

16 fossil fuel production that has been brought 

17 about by the advent of fracking for oil and 

18 natural gas, mountain top removal coal mining, 

19 tar sands derivement of northern Alberta, and 

20 deep ocean oil production.

21 This revolution produces coal, oil and 

22 natural gas from sources that were long written 

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1 off as technically unfeasible and economically 

2 unprofitable.

3 It is frequently called extreme energy. 

4 I call it berserk energy because an energy regime 

5 that blows the tops off mountains, strip mines a 

6 whole region of North America, ruins aquifers and 

7 turns the Gulf of Mexico into a deadly zone is 

8 berserk.

9 One problem with the proposed standards 

10 is they only pay attention to what happens once 

11 the fuel source gets to the power plant. They do 

12 not consider the whole process from extraction to 

13 combustion. 

14 Fracking illustrates this problem. It is 

15 during the process of fracking that the case for 

16 natural gas is when a more environmentally 

17 friendly form of fossil fuel begins to fall 

18 apart.

19 There is the release of the potent 

20 methane gas at drill sites, and the poison of air 

21 and soil, aquifers and streams from the 

22 byproducts of drill sites.

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1 Fracking also pollutes our democracy with 

2 fracking exemptions to home rule, the flooding of 

3 state legislatures with money, the corrupting of 

4 regulatory agencies and the use of gag orders to 

5 silence those who have been harmed by fracking 

6 wells.

7 Next we should consider natural gas as a 

8 bridge fuel to a renewable energy future. I 

9 don’t know what is worse, the gullibility of 

10 those who believe this lie or the mendacity of 

11 those who promote it. The bridge is a bridge to 

12 nowhere. The producers have no intention of 

13 helping transition to renewable energy that would 

14 put them out of business.

15 When the EPA promotes natural gas 

16 production from fracking as a way to deal with 

17 climate change because it does not release as 

18 much carbon as coal, it is acting like an alcohol 

19 treatment program that urges its clients to sober 

20 up by giving up vodka and whiskey and switching 

21 to beer and wine. After all, beer and wine do 

22 not have as high an alcohol content as vodka and 

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1 whiskey.

2 Another problem is with the proposed 

3 standards used as a guideline, the overall 

4 efficiency of emissions per unit of energy 

5 generated. This dovetails nicely with the 

6 Administration’s energy mantra of all the above, 

7 which really means the same old, same old.

8 The standard should prioritize renewable 

9 energy sources over traditional fossil fuels. We 

10 need to mobilize for a transition to renewables 

11 as we mobilized to fight World War II. Then we 

12 would be able to call this a serious policy 

13 initiative on climate change.

14 To end, we must subject a sense of moral 

15 urgency into the debate on this proposal. If you 

16 saw a toddler wondering into traffic, you would 

17 not text its parents, you would rush to pull the 

18 child from harm’s way. What we need is that 

19 sense of urgency with the climate challenge we 

20 face. Simple moral decency and the well-being of 

21 those who come after us demand it. Thank you. 

22 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you. Okay, we have 

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1 three more speakers and then we’re going to break 

2 for lunch. I’m probably not going to get this 

3 first one right but I will try. Andre Saint Cyr 

4 and William Thwing.

5 MR. SAINT CYR: Hello.

6 MR. WAYLAND: Good evening.

7 MR. SAINT CYR: I’m doing great. Can you 

8 hear me? Yeah, I wrote a few things. I’m Andre 

9 Saint Cyr, a community activist in Cleveland, 

10 Ohio. And the first thing I wanted to do is -- I 

11 wrote some stuff down but I can just tell you 

12 what I know I think.

13 We have a power plant right there not far 

14 from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that has a 

15 coal burner, an old coal burner. It’s about 50 

16 years old if not 60, and the community that that 

17 plant is by is an African/American community, and 

18 hadn’t looked at some of the literature that 

19 relates to the communities around these plants, 

20 and some of the -- there were some points that I 

21 wanted to bring out that you’re probably familiar 

22 with, and I wanted to thank you for trying to 

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1 shut some of these plants down, and/or cut down 

2 emissions, which you’re trying to do.

3 There is a -- these are some statistics 

4 that if you weren’t familiar, you can add it to 

5 the record, that this was an issue they had --

6 this was a study by the NAACP with some other 

7 affiliates. This thing was a conclusion back in 

8 2012, and it related to the African -- I’m going 

9 to raise some points about low income communities 

10 and communities of color bear the greatest burden 

11 of dirty coal energy, a total of 5.9 million 

12 Americans live within -- live within three miles 

13 of a major coal fired plant, such as I do.

14 Those 5.9 million people have an average 

15 per capita of $18,400, 17 percent lower than the 

16 U.S. average. Out of those 5.9 million people, 

17 39 percent are people of color.

18 Another point, because it’s on Lake Erie, 

19 and this is the old coal burning plant, one of 

20 the many -- but anyway, mercury from the power 

21 plants accumulates in water, local waterways, and 

22 presents a direct risk to people when they eat 

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1 contaminated fish. 

2 As it is pollutants such as mercury, 

3 benzene, dioxins have the greatest impact on 

4 people located within a mile of power plants with 

5 smoke stacks reaching up to a thousand feet high. 

6 Some of these toxic chemicals can travel far, 

7 causing regional or even global impacts, and 

8 we’ve had that right here in Cleveland. 

9 If you know anything about Lake Erie, 

10 that plant sits within a quarter mile of the edge 

11 of the shore. And if you get a northern wind, it 

12 blows into one section of the black community. 

13 And if you get a western wind, the other 

14 community gets it. And this is something that’s 

15 been going on a long time. I grew up with this 

16 plant, and it’s one of the worst in Ohio.

17 But back to some of the other statistics 

18 that affect the African/American communities 

19 that’s around this plant and other plants around 

20 the country, 68 percent of African/Americans live 

21 within 30 miles of a power plant. The distance 

22 within -- the distance within the maximum effects 

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1 of the smoke stack plume are expected to occur.

2 By comparison, about 56 percent of the 

3 white population lives within 30 miles of a coal 

4 fired plant. At least one in twelve, as many as 

5 one in -- at least one in twelve, and as many as 

6 one in six American women of child bearing age 

7 have enough mercury in their bodies to put a baby 

8 at risk for mercury poisoning.

9 Mercury and other dangerous air 

10 pollutants are connected to extreme health 

11 problems, brain damage, learning disabilities, 

12 birth defects, heart disease, cancer and even 

13 premature death.

14 On to another point, several of the 

15 toxins from power plant emissions are also tied 

16 to lung cancer. Despite lower smoking rates, 

17 African/Americans are more likely to develop and 

18 die from lung cancer than white Americans.

19 This will be the last point. The 2010 

20 Report on Power Plant Pollution by Clean Air Task 

21 Force found that coal power plant pollution in 

22 the United States is responsible for 13,200 

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1 premature deaths, 9,700 hospitalizations each 

2 year, as well as over a billion dollars in 

3 monetary damages. 

4 I just wanted to have those stats on the 

5 record. You’re probably going to have some more 

6 later on today. And since it is a personal 

7 thing, and I live next to this plant, and I was a 

8 kid growing up, you know, you could see the smoke 

9 stakes aren’t as high, but I’m glad you’re doing 

10 what you’re doing, because you kind of need to 

11 get on that one and shut that one down, man.

12 You know, and then we’ve had some 

13 dilemmas also because of the laws that were --

14 they scaled back some laws through our Governor, 

15 John Casey, and they took the stuff back to 2009. 

16 And we’re the first state that did that in the 

17 country, so it might be a trend. That’s it.

18 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much for 

19 your testimony, appreciate it.

20 MR. THWING: Good afternoon. My name is 

21 William Thwing, T-h-w-i-n-g, and I’ve submitted 

22 my reports to you. I am the pastor of the St. 

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1 Paul’s United Church of Christ in Johnstown, 

2 Pennsylvania. I am here representing Creation 

3 Care Partners, an arm of the Penn West Conference 

4 of the United Church of Christ, which is devoted 

5 to environmental justice. And also, the greater 

6 Johnstown Creation Care, a faith based 

7 organization from the Johnstown area, which 

8 serves to forewarn citizens of the coming ravages 

9 of climate change, accelerating climate change 

10 and preparing them to act on it.

11 Human caused carbon pollution is the main 

12 reason for climate warming. Our scientists and 

13 politicians have known about out of control 

14 atmospheric carbon dioxide for over 50 years. 

15 But they have chosen to do nothing about it 

16 except talk and research, and study until now, 

17 when it is almost too late. Because now, the 

18 Arctic permafrost is leaking methane like a 

19 sieve. Now, holes -- as of July 16th, holes, the 

20 very first one, the size of football fields, are 

21 exploding with giant amounts of methane coming 

22 out of the Siberian shelf. 

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1 Now glacial ice from the West Arctic 

2 Shelf and from Greenland have been proven to be 

3 sliding slowly into the ocean, guaranteeing to 

4 raise coastal sea levels in the United States by 

5 at least ten feet, and coastal cities all over 

6 the planet.

7 We Americans have known about this for 

8 two generations, but we are so addicted to the 

9 pleasures of our over consumption that we have 

10 become literally obese, lazy and addicts, 

11 addicts.

12 We have allowed the Robert Barons of the 

13 fossil fuel industry to dupe us with their 

14 millions and billions of dollars of false 

15 advertising, convincing us that everything is 

16 okay and we should continue to use and buy their 

17 products. Products which will not only destroy 

18 human civilization as we know it, but which have 

19 driven, already, many species into extinction, 

20 and very well may drive our own species into 

21 extinction if we continue on our current course.

22 Everything is not okay. We are in great 

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1 danger as a culture, and as a civilization and as 

2 a nation if we continue. It is time to wake up. 

3 It is time to make some big changes in our 

4 thinking and our lifestyles before it’s too late. 

5 In its Clean Power Plan, the -- which 

6 will reduce American carbon pollution 30 percent 

7 by 2030, the EPA has taken a giant step in the 

8 right direction, and I thank you for that.

9 But it’s just one baby step in the whole 

10 process of slowing down what we know is coming. 

11 There are many, many more steps that need to be 

12 taken by the EPA, by state and environmental 

13 protection agencies, and particularly by our 

14 federal, state, administrative, legislative and 

15 judicial leaders if we are going to head off the 

16 worst effects of climate change.

17 We must eliminate fossil fuel subsidies. 

18 We must enact a carbon tax. We must convert our 

19 fossil fuel based energy system to a renewable 

20 based energy system, using energy from the sun, 

21 water, wind, which are all free gifts from God, 

22 which once harnessed will provide more than 

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1 enough energy for the entire planet, and will 

2 provide many more jobs here in the good old US of 

3 A than the fossil fuel industry, than mechanized 

4 fossil fuel industry ever can or will. 

5 We must keep all fossil fuels in the 

6 ground where God put them in the first place and 

7 where they should stay. 

8 We need a vision, and we need hope. And 

9 we need to believe that we can do it. And we 

10 will need lots of talented innovators and 

11 entrepreneurs to make this happen. We will need 

12 legislators, judges, political administrators who 

13 have integrity, who have wisdom, who has the 

14 courage to do what is right, and who are not 

15 buyable. We need to hobble the fossil fuel 

16 industry to make it do our will rather than us 

17 doing its will, thereby corrupting our entire 

18 democratic system, and systematically destroying 

19 our nation and our civilization. The one that 

20 our ancestors worked so hard to create for us.

21 Otherwise, there will be nothing left for 

22 our children and for our grandchildren. We will 

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1 have squandered it in just a few years, years 

2 which took hundreds of years, or even thousands 

3 of years to create. If you believe in a creative 

4 God as I do, and if you are familiar with the 

5 scriptures as I am, you know that this planet is 

6 a very special place. It is the only place in 

7 the universe that we know of for sure where human 

8 life exists, or where any life exists. 

9 It is precious. It is unique. It is one 

10 of a kind. It is worth protecting. It is worth 

11 preserving. We humans are the only ones who are 

12 capable of doing that. According to my belief, 

13 we were given the responsibility a long time ago 

14 of preserving and protecting this planet by our 

15 creator, and we are failing miserably. It’s time 

16 to take responsibility seriously. It’s time to 

17 devote our every waking moment to preserving and 

18 protecting our planet, our seeds, our land, our 

19 air, our water, our civilization and all the 

20 other life forms with whom we share this planet 

21 before it's too late and we lose everything.

22 And may God help us get this job done. 

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1 Thank you.

2 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you. 

3 Andre, did you have anything you wanted 

4 to leave with us?

5 MR. SAINT CYR: No. I could leave a 

6 piece for you. 

7 MR. WAYLAND: Okay. We’ll add it to the 

8 record so she can get some of the numbers.

9 Okay, we’re down to our final speaker for 

10 the morning session, then we’ll take a brief 

11 break for lunch and reconvene at one p.m. back in 

12 this room. 

13 For those of you who do not want to leave 

14 the building, there is a cafeteria, I’m told, on 

15 the second floor. I cannot speak to the quality 

16 of the food, but there is a cafeteria in the 

17 building on the second floor if you’d like to use 

18 it.

19 Our final speaker this morning will be 

20 Jennifer McIntyre.

21 MS. MCINTYRE: Good afternoon. My name 

22 is Jennifer McIntyre. I’m the Pennsylvania Field 

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1 Manager of Mom’s Clean Air Force. I’d like to 

2 thank the EPA for holding these hearings today. 

3 I’m here as a mom of two daughters who 

4 have struggled with respiratory illness. My 

5 oldest daughter was diagnosed with asthma at age 

6 eight months, after numerous emergency visits. 

7 Nothing I had ever experienced comes close to the 

8 terror of watching an infant struggle to breathe.

9 That fear changed me and set me on a 

10 course to find out what I could do to prevent 

11 another attack. I found there are many things I 

12 could control that would help lessen the chances 

13 of another asthma attack. However, the most 

14 important risk factor was and is out of my 

15 control. It’s the simple act of walking outside 

16 and taking a breath of air.

17 I’m also here today on behalf of mothers 

18 of asthmatic children who could not make the trip 

19 to show our support for the EPA’s Clean Power 

20 Plan, and to demand strong action on climate 

21 change and the harmful carbon pollution fueling 

22 it.

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1 My family lives in Philadelphia, where 

2 last year, according to the American Lung 

3 Association, we had fifty orange ozone days. 

4 Philadelphia County received an F grade in both 

5 ozone pollution and particulate pollution.

6 We know that in the U.S., power plants 

7 are responsible for nearly 40 percent of the 

8 carbon pollution that is putting our health and 

9 the health of the planet at risk. We have a 

10 moral obligation to our children and future 

11 generations to limit the emissions of dangerous 

12 pollutants.

13 We fought to put limits on mercury, 

14 arsenic, soot and other dangerous pollutants, yet 

15 shockingly, power plants are able to dub 

16 unlimited carbon pollution into the air without 

17 regard to the health of our children or the 

18 planet.

19 As a mom, I say make polluters clean up 

20 their mess. Children should not have to be 

21 rushed to the ER for nebulizer treatments just 

22 because corporations won’t act responsibly.

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1 We should be committing all our brain 

2 power and resources toward developing more 

3 intelligent moral ways to generate the power we 

4 need, not letting corporations take the easy way 

5 out.

6 I hope that my children will grow up to 

7 see a country that solved this serious problem 

8 which threatened human health and the health of 

9 the planet through innovation and hard work, not 

10 one that out of laziness and greed dump toxic 

11 waste into the atmosphere.

12 The EPA’s Clean Power Plan is an 

13 important first step in addressing climate change 

14 and harmful air pollution. To weaken it is 

15 unconscionable. Mothers across the United States 

16 are watching to make sure states implementing the 

17 plan consider children’s health and our moral 

18 obligation to future generations.

19 Again, thank you so much for this 

20 opportunity to testify today.

21 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much. And 

22 with that we will adjourn the hearing for lunch. 

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1 We will reconvene in this room in about 40 

2 minutes at 1:00 p.m. Thank you. 

3 [Lunch recess from 12:22 to 1:11 p.m.]

4 MR. WAYLAND: Good afternoon. We’re 

5 ready to reconvene today’s Public Hearing. 

6 My name is Bob Wayland. I’m the leader 

7 of the Energy Strategies Group of EPA in Research 

8 Triangle Park, North Carolina, and I’m one of the 

9 folks chairing these hearings on this floor and 

10 up on the 15th floor today.

11 First and foremost, I’d like to thank 

12 each of you for coming and spending part of your 

13 afternoon with us to share your thoughts and 

14 comments. 

15 Joining me on the panel today to my 

16 immediate left is Debra Dalcher of OAQPS in our 

17 Research Triangle Park where I’m from. 

18 And to her left is Jeremy Mark. He’s 

19 from our Office of Atmospheric Programs in 

20 Washington, D.C. 

21 I’m going to read through some remarks 

22 that are going to help you understand how this is 

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1 going to flow and how we’d like it to go, so if 

2 you’d pay close attention, it would be great.

3 We are here today to listen to your 

4 comments on the two proposed rules to reduce 

5 carbon pollution from plants. The EPA announced 

6 both of these proposed rules on June 2nd, 2014. 

7 Power plants are the single largest 

8 source of carbon pollution in the U.S., 

9 accounting for roughly one-third of all domestic 

10 greenhouse gas emissions.

11 The first rule EPA proposed is a Clean 

12 Power Plan for Existing Power Plants. This 

13 proposal consists of two main parts, a State 

14 specific goal section that lowers carbon 

15 pollution from power plants and a guidelines 

16 section that’s designed to help states develop 

17 their plans for meeting these individual state 

18 goals.

19 This proposal gives states flexibility in 

20 determining how to meet these goals and states 

21 will choose what goes into their plans that show 

22 how they will achieve the needed reductions and 

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1 meet their goals by the year 2030.

2 The second rule is EPA’s proposed rule to

3 address carbon dioxide emissions from modified 

4 and reconstructed power plants. This rule would 

5 set emission limits for two groups of power 

6 plants. 

7 First, those that make physical or 

8 operational changes that increase the plant’s 

9 maximum achievable hourly rate of emissions, and 

10 for those plants that replace components to such 

11 an extent that the new components exceed 50 

12 percent of the capital cost of an entirely new 

13 comparable facility.

14 Those are the Clean Air Act definitions 

15 for a modified source and a reconstructed source.

16 If you would like more details on either 

17 of these proposed rules, there are fact sheets 

18 available near the registration downstairs in the 

19 lobby. Avail yourself to those as you leave or 

20 later this afternoon.

21 Today’s hearing is one of four that we’ve 

22 held across the country this week on these two 

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1 proposed rules. We have had tremendous interest 

2 in each of these hearings and I would like to 

3 thank you for taking the time out of your day to 

4 join us and share your comments with us.

5 We have a lot of people signed up to 

6 speak not only this afternoon, but after the 

7 dinner hour and we want to hear from all of you.

8 So before we get started I’d like to go 

9 through a few housekeeping items and ground rules 

10 that will help make today’s hearing run smoother.

11 First, please be sure that you have 

12 checked in at the registration desk. Even if you 

13 are not planning to speak today, we would like 

14 for you to register downstairs so we know who has 

15 been in attendance.

16 And if you signed up to speak online or 

17 by phone, but haven’t yet told us that you’re 

18 here, please go to the registration desk and tell 

19 them because they’re sending me the names on 

20 index cards to call you up to speak. So if you 

21 are planning to speak and you haven’t registered, 

22 please do so.

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1 The second important thing is if you are 

2 a speaker, as I mentioned earlier, we are running 

3 two concurrent hearings. This is Room A. If 

4 you’re signed up to speak in Room B, you need to 

5 go up to the 15th floor, and now would be a good 

6 time to do that. If you’re assigned to Room A, 

7 you’re in this room and we will get to you in the 

8 order that you have signed up.

9 Okay, so here’s how we’re going to work 

10 it. I’m going to call you up to the -- I’ll fix 

11 those chairs, but I’m going to call you up to the 

12 table two at a time and there’s not a flood and 

13 we’re not building an ark, but we’re going to do 

14 it two at a time. And you come up and sit 

15 together, and I ask that you remain there while 

16 the other person speaks and you leave together, 

17 and I’ll call two additional people.

18 When I call on you to speak, please state 

19 your name, and please spell your last name for 

20 the court reporter to make sure that it’s 

21 accurately reflected in the record.

22 We will be providing a verbatim 

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1 transcript of today’s hearing, and it will be 

2 available at some point in the future in the 

3 public docket so that you can have access to 

4 that.

5 Each speaker will have five minutes to 

6 give their comments. We have this nice little 

7 light down here on the end of the table to help 

8 you keep up with that. When the light turns 

9 green it is time for you to start. When it goes 

10 to yellow, it means you have roughly a minute 

11 left. And when it turns red, it means you should 

12 be wrapping up your remarks, and then you will 

13 hear a buzzer that will tell you you need to be 

14 done.

15 I’m not going to cut anybody off anybody 

16 in mid-sentence, but like I said, we have a lot 

17 of people here testify, so if you could stick to 

18 the five minute allotted window, that would help 

19 everybody out. But again, we’re here to hear 

20 you, so we’re going to do the best we can to 

21 accommodate everyone.

22 When you are finished speaking, please 

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1 remain, like I said, until the next person has 

2 completed. We’re here to listen to you today, 

3 however, if there is something you say that we 

4 may not totally understand, we’re able to ask 

5 clarifying questions. So we may or may not need 

6 to do that when you present.

7 I’ll call up the next pair of speakers 

8 and we’ll go through that throughout the 

9 afternoon. If you have written testimony that 

10 you’ve brought, you can leave it here on the 

11 table. That also will find its way into the 

12 public docket. It will also help the court 

13 reporter to make sure that we’ve got everything 

14 accurate for the record there.

15 Because of the large number of people who 

16 have signed up to speak today, and to be fair to 

17 each of you, we’re going to have to do our best 

18 enforcing the five-minute limit. Like I said, 

19 we’ll be as flexible as we can but we can’t let 

20 you go on for eight or ten minutes because it’s 

21 just not fair to everyone else.

22 If you have additional comments you would 

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1 like to make that you didn’t have time to speak 

2 on the record, you can deposit them here, and 

3 again, the will get into the Air docket.

4 I want to assure you that EPA gives just 

5 as much consideration to comments we receive in 

6 writing as we do to the comments we’re going to 

7 hear here today. So if you have more that you 

8 would like to say, or something you may think of 

9 after today, feel free to submit it Air and 

10 Radiation docket and it will go into the 

11 rulemaking effort.

12 There is still a lot of time to get 

13 written comments in. There are comment cards 

14 available up here on the table, and anything you 

15 submit in writing needs to be into the docket or 

16 to the agency by October the 16th of 2014 at 

17 midnight.

18 We will put any of these written comments 

19 in the official docket for the proposed rule, and 

20 there are instructions in the lobby downstairs 

21 for exactly how you make that electronic email or 

22 PDF submission to the docket. So if you have 

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1 questions about that, the folks downstairs in the 

2 lobby will be able to direct you to that 

3 information and help you out.

4 We’re scheduled to go until 5:00 in this 

5 afternoon session. There will be a brief break 

6 from five to six for dinner, and then we’ll 

7 reconvene at 6:00 and go to 8:00 this evening. 

8 There may be the need -- this afternoon 

9 session is a four-hour session, which is a long 

10 one. So we may need to break somewhere in the 

11 middle for five or ten minutes to allow the 

12 reporter to stretch her hands and legs and that 

13 kind of stuff. Sitting there typing for four 

14 hours straight is kind of arduous, so we may take 

15 a break around 3:00 or 3:15 for that.

16 All right, if you have any questions 

17 during today, please see the staff at the 

18 registration desk or some of the folks in the 

19 back of the room. They’ll be happy to help you 

20 as best they can. 

21 And finally, I want to ask each of you to 

22 please be respectful of everyone who speaks 

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1 today. We have people in this room this 

2 afternoon with a wide variety of views in the 

3 audience and we want to hear from all of you.

4 So in order for us to do that, and to be 

5 fair to everyone, we ask that you listen quietly. 

6 Even applause can slow things down, and because 

7 time is so critical in these hearings we want to 

8 keep them on schedule and assure that everyone 

9 has a chance to speak.

10 Also, if you would refrain from coming in 

11 and out of the room while people are speaking, 

12 that would be good too, because the noise tends 

13 to filter in from the hall. So if you need to 

14 leave the room, go when speakers are changing, 

15 not while they’re speaking, that would be very 

16 helpful.

17 So I think that’s all the housekeeping 

18 stuff I need to do for now. So thank you again 

19 for your attendance, we look forward to hearing 

20 from you and we will start with the first two 

21 speakers this afternoon. The first one is Thomas 

22 Au, and I apologize if I mispronounce that. And 

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1 Thomas Collins.

2 MR. AU: Good afternoon. My name is 

3 Thomas Au, it’s spelled A-u. I am here today on 

4 behalf of the Clean Air Board in Central 

5 Pennsylvania.

6 In 2005, over a hundred Cumberland County 

7 physicians published an open letter informing the 

8 community of the growing danger of air pollution. 

9 The Clean Air Board was formed to support these 

10 positions and educating our community and 

11 advocating for cleaner air.

12 We have grown to include hundreds of 

13 people in Central Pennsylvania. The Clean Air 

14 Act requires the EPA to develop regulations for 

15 categories of sources which cause or 

16 significantly contribute to air pollution which 

17 may endanger the public health or welfare. 

18 Greenhouse gas emissions endanger the public 

19 health and welfare.

20 The increasing evidence of the 

21 sensitivity of climate to rising levels of 

22 greenhouse gases such as Super Storm Sandy and 

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1 more rapid disappearance of arctic sea ice 

2 underscores the need for states to take action to 

3 reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Clean Air 

4 Act offers an avenue for addressing these 

5 greenhouse gas emissions and carbon pollution.

6 The EPA, once it finds that greenhouse 

7 gases are responsible for air pollution, must 

8 issue guidance to the states on how to implement 

9 the best system of emission reductions for 

10 existing sources. The Clean Air Act requires 

11 states to develop plans similar to the State 

12 Implementation Plans for Criteria Pollutants for 

13 Existing Sources of Non-criteria Pollutants, in

14 this case, greenhouse gases.

15 We believe that the regulations that you 

16 are considering now offer an opportunity to 

17 tailor a plan specific for Pennsylvania which 

18 would accomplish the emission reductions that are 

19 necessary to move forward to combat climate 

20 disruption.

21 On December 2nd, 2013, the commissioners, 

22 secretaries and directors of environmental and 

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1 energy agencies from the states within the 

2 Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative commented to 

3 EPA on this forthcoming regulation for greenhouse 

4 gasses from existing power plants.

5 While Pennsylvania is not a member of 

6 RGGI, we believe that Pennsylvania can learn from 

7 the RGGI experience. Recent RGGI comments 

8 encourage EPA to design its regulations to 

9 maximize energy efficiency to allow emissions 

10 already reduced to count for compliance, and to 

11 maximize greenhouse gas reductions within a large 

12 region.

13 RGGI states have asserted, and the EPA 

14 has recognized in its preamble to the regulations 

15 that the RGGI initiative is an example of the 

16 magnitude of cuts that the EPA should demand from 

17 existing sources elsewhere in this country.

18 I’m calling from the RGGI comments, “The 

19 experience in the RGGI states show that the 

20 magnitude of emission reductions possible from 

21 the power sector have projected 50 percent 

22 decline in tons of carbon dioxide emissions and 

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1 from a fossil fuel generation fleet that is 

2 projected to achieve compliance on par with the 

3 recently proposed resource performance standards 

4 for electric generating units.” 

5 “Between 2005 and 2012, CO2 emission from 

6 the power sector in the nine participating RGGI 

7 states dropped more than 40 percent, from 262.5 

8 million tons in 2005 to 92 million tons in 2012. 

9 The RGGI states are locking in this reduction by 

10 reducing the regional cap to 91 million tons in 

11 2014, and reducing it an additional 2.5 percent 

12 each year thereafter to 78 billion tons in 2020.”

13 “In 2020, the RGGI emission caps will 

14 ensure that the regional emissions are 50 percent 

15 lower than the 2005 emission levels.”

16 Now, some of these emission reductions 

17 are from the successful energy efficiency 

18 programs implemented by each of the RGGI 

19 participating states. For example, New York’s 

20 energy efficiency programs reduce electricity use 

21 in New York by an accumulative total of 6.5 

22 percent in 2012. 

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1 And RGGI states that this regional 

2 approach emission reductions have several 

3 benefits. It’s extremely cost effective because 

4 it uses market mechanisms to seek out the least 

5 expensive emission reductions in the region. 

6 It provides economic benefits, creates 

7 thousands of jobs in three years, and creating 

8 and reducing energy bills and it aligns with the 

9 regional nature of the energy grid.

10 Although Pennsylvania is not part of 

11 RGGI, the Pennsylvania utilities work in RGGI 

12 states, and Pennsylvania can design a state plan 

13 which could dovetail RGGI. And Pennsylvania 

14 should adopt these guiding principles that were 

15 implemented by RGGI. 

16 We think that we have a moral imperative 

17 to reduce the emissions that contribute to 

18 climate disruption, and there are sound economic 

19 reasons for doing so.

20 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much. Any 

21 questions? No? Okay.

22 MR. COLLINS: Hello. My name is Thomas 

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1 Collins. I’m from Garrettsville, Ohio, and I’m 

2 here to say I strongly support the proposed rules 

3 to cut carbon pollution from our power plants and 

4 to urge your national move to the alternatives of 

5 energy efficiency and renewable energy. And I 

6 think I was the first person in Ohio to sign up 

7 and come and tell you why.

8 MR. WAYLAND: Glad you’re here.

9 MR. COLLINS: With my family roots to 

10 East of here in Dukane, and south of here in 

11 Jefferson, my family, a long time ago, moved from 

12 the mines in southern PA to what we hoped was, 

13 you know, better work, a better life, the 

14 American dream in Ohio.

15 But like a lot of the people in this area 

16 of Pennsylvania, I grew up shoveling coal into a 

17 boiler in our basement to keep warm. My family 

18 didn’t know the neurological effects and long 

19 term effects of health by coal exposure. 

20 By the time I was thirteen, we had moved 

21 to town and left the coal bin and the boiler 

22 behind, but then I lost vision in one eye. That 

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1 was the beginning of life dealing with MS, 

2 multiple sclerosis. Eventually, seven of the 

3 nine of my brothers and sisters had some sort of 

4 autoimmune disease. 

5 And the better that my dad moved to, that 

6 ended up being at a coal fired rubber factory. 

7 He passed away just before his 60th birthday. 

8 His arteries were so weak they just gave out. 

9 Back here in PA, cancer and black lung 

10 hit our extended family, and all this damage, 

11 this is one of the real costs we pay for fossil 

12 fuel use, illness, medical bills, lost 

13 productivity, family lives shortened. These are 

14 costs all passed by dirty energy.

15 Now with science, we learn that the cost 

16 of the pollution is even more than a personal 

17 hazard. There’s growing levels of pollution in 

18 the sky and causing -- they cause big changes 

19 bigger than any of us could ever imagine, and in 

20 the end, what we did yesterday is going to be 

21 paid for by our kids tomorrow.

22 Ironically, the oil man, T. Boone Pickens 

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1 just recently announced his five principles of 

2 energy, and the first principle he listed was a 

3 clear responsibility and accountability for 

4 energy decisions. I want to join Mr. Pickens and 

5 call for responsible energy use and 

6 accountability for the harm caused in the pursuit 

7 of a dollar.

8 As our president recently said, a low 

9 carbon, clean energy economy can be an engine 

10 for grown and jobs for decades to come. Well, 

11 I’m here to tell you I want America to love that 

12 clean engine. Shame on us all, and what a shame 

13 it would be if instead of working to make America 

14 the world leader with clean energy, we continue 

15 wasting our time on how fast we should go 

16 backwards, because hiding from a problem has 

17 never been our way.

18 As we move forward with clean energy, we 

19 have to remember my family and all the other 

20 families around here, because we will be left as 

21 clear examples of how past poor decisions that 

22 were made without regard to health will affect us 

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1 all. 

2 Even now, limits on coal dust exposure 

3 have not been updated in over 40 years. I call 

4 on all our states and national leaders to respond 

5 positively to the proposed carbon rules with 

6 investments in greater energy efficiency, and we 

7 need to move to a carbon free and toxin free 

8 energy development program.

9 For jobs, for the environment we all live 

10 in and for my kids and for your kids, we need to 

11 move swiftly to approve this Clean Power Plan, to 

12 slow down our carbon pollution and to make sure 

13 dirty energy does not cause physical harm to more 

14 generations of Americans. That’s what I have.

15 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much.

16 Our next two speakers this afternoon will 

17 be Michael Sauvante and Thomas Shuster.

18 MR. SAUVANTE: Good afternoon, my name is 

19 Michael Sauvante. I’m the executive director of 

20 a small think tank called National Commonwealth 

21 Group. It focuses on economic development 

22 research.

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1 What I’d like to talk about today is the 

2 potential impact with these proposals with 

3 respect to economic development, which is the 

4 area that we’ve been concentrating on. And 

5 before explaining what it was that we have come 

6 to the conclusion of, I’d like to take just a 

7 couple of quick minutes to give you some of my 

8 bona fides.

9 I am a 35 plus year entrepreneur out of 

10 Silicon Valley, San Francisco Bay area. In 

11 Silicon Valley terms I’m called a startup jockey. 

12 I’m a serial entrepreneur, I’ve started more than 

13 a half a dozen business, and to give you a feel 

14 for the expertise in that space that in the late 

15 90's, I wound up being brought into the Hewlett 

16 Packard Headquarters and working with them to 

17 help to try and put together the first corporate 

18 incubator in Silicon Valley to try and develop 

19 new ventures out of the technologies coming out 

20 of HP labs, and that attracted so much attention, 

21 I got recruited for a custom PhD around the whole 

22 concept of new venture creation of companies.

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1 I got impatient with the pace of things 

2 in a large Fortune 50 company and decided to go 

3 back to my entrepreneurial, you know, roots, and 

4 did so, started a couple of high tech companies. 

5 And then from there, in 2008 I made a shift and 

6 launched the National Commonwealth Group as just 

7 a small private non-profit think tank focused on 

8 economic development issues. 

9 And of course, that was right as the 

10 economy tanked, and that given the background 

11 that I had and the colleagues that I pulled 

12 together with that, that we started looking at 

13 what could possibly be done in the way of 

14 economic development issues throughout the 

15 country. And for those who may be familiar with 

16 something that’s come out of the White House here 

17 in the past several years, the White House teamed 

18 with the Kauffman Foundation and AOL and created 

19 a Startup America organization. 

20 And I want to refer to the Kauffman 

21 Foundation and a study they did several years 

22 back where when it came to job creation in this 

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1 country, they looked at all the major different 

2 sectors from the standpoint of, you know, 

3 establishing new jobs, the loss of jobs, the net 

4 new job creation, and there was only one group 

5 that came out as the one that had, over the past 

6 several decades, net new jobs. And that was 

7 small businesses and, more particularly, what 

8 they referred to as startups, which they defined 

9 as companies that were five years or younger.

10 So, you know, that gave us, you know, 

11 kind of the marching orders to look at the idea 

12 of small companies as the opportunity space for 

13 economic development and job creations throughout 

14 the country. And anybody who knows small 

15 businesses know that even the very largest, you 

16 know, the HPs of the world and the Microsofts and 

17 so on, all start as small enterprises. And the 

18 vast majority of small enterprises never get 

19 beyond the main street, you know, small business 

20 community, but that -- that constituency 

21 represents 52 percent of all the jobs in the 

22 United States right now.

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1 And so we started exploring the idea of 

2 what could the roughly 40,000 identifiable 

3 communities throughout the country to develop new 

4 businesses and economic development and new jobs 

5 within their communities, rather than the idea of 

6 large macro solutions, their micro-solutions done 

7 at each and every community. And in 

8 investigating all of the different industries and 

9 market spaces, et cetera, what we discovered was 

10 that there were two areas that represented the 

11 most wide open space for brand new businesses to 

12 be created within each and every community that 

13 would not represent competitive businesses. 

14 Like if I start another restaurant, I’m 

15 competing against somebody else who’s already got 

16 an existing restaurant. But if the town has no 

17 solar contractor, for example, that represents a 

18 brand new, you know, business concept. And the 

19 two key areas that we determined where there was 

20 the greatest wide open space was in the energy 

21 space and in a highly overlapping area was the 

22 local foods movement.

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1 Anybody who is at all familiar with the 

2 advancement of the cost of energy in the country, 

3 the large agribusiness systems have become very 

4 cost uncompetitive, uncompetitive in comparison 

5 to local grown food. And there is an entire 

6 ecosystem around local foods, and they overlap 

7 the energy space considerably. So those 

8 represent two areas where all communities have 

9 the opportunity to create many new businesses and 

10 many new jobs.

11 So I’ll put -- I just signed up today, 

12 so I’m going to have to, you know, put this in 

13 writing for you to follow up, but I thank you 

14 very much for the opportunity to share that basic 

15 perspective and those concepts that if we want to 

16 look at dealing with this energy space and clean 

17 energy production, that that’s where we have some 

18 of the greatest opportunity. And especially in

19 energy space, it’s generation, conservation and 

20 efficiency.

21 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much.

22 MR. SAUVANTE: Thank you. 

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1 MR. WAYLAND: We very much look forward 

2 to your written comments as well.

3 MR. SAUVANTE: Thank you. 

4 MR. SHUSTER: Good afternoon. My name is 

5 Tom Shuster and I live at 605 23rd Street in 

6 Windber, Pennsylvania. I represent the Sierra 

7 Club, which has over 24,000 members in 

8 Pennsylvania, and I also represent my wife, and 

9 especially my three-year-old daughter, who is 

10 still too young to speak for herself, but who 

11 will have to deal with the consequences of the 

12 decisions that the grownups will make over the 

13 next several years for better or worse. 

14 We fully support the proposal by EPA to 

15 eliminate carbon pollution from existing power 

16 plants for the first time in history. The cost 

17 of failing to adequately deal with climate 

18 disruption caused mainly by carbon pollution are 

19 immense.

20 By the end of this century, the northeast 

21 region is expected to see an additional 57 days 

22 per year, nearly two full months of temperatures 

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1 over 95 degrees. This will have severe 

2 consequences on our health, our economy and the 

3 infrastructure and natural systems on which we 

4 depend.

5 Higher average temperature leads to worse 

6 air quality and, in turn, more hospital 

7 admissions and premature deaths, particularly 

8 among children. It leads to the spread of insect 

9 borne diseases that were once only problems in 

10 the tropics. It leads to more frequent intense 

11 storms, which can damage our homes and threaten 

12 our lives with high winds and flooding. 

13 It also threatens our economy. For 

14 example, the ten-year flood in Allegheny County 

15 costed over eight billion dollars to clean up, 

16 and that’s money that can’t be invested in 

17 growing our regional economy. And these are only 

18 going to become more severe.

19 Another example, agriculture currently 

20 employees more people in Pennsylvania than the 

21 extraction of coal, oil and gas combined. And 

22 it’s projected to suffer from the extreme heat, 

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1 droughts and storms and can shed many thousands 

2 of jobs.

3 These are just examples -- some examples 

4 of this severe and permanent consequences of 

5 inaction which would dwarf any transitional 

6 impacts of cleaning up carbon pollution. 

7 Fortunately, though, the transition does not need 

8 to be difficult. In fact, Pennsylvania is 

9 already well on its way to meeting the proposed 

10 target. We have energy efficiency requirements 

11 and clean energy requirements that are already on 

12 the books and being implemented that will get us 

13 over one-third of the way to our proposed target.

14 When we add in coal plant retirements 

15 that have already taken place since 2012, and 

16 additional retirements are conversions to gas 

17 that have already been announced, we’ll be more 

18 than halfway there. 

19 But there is much more we can do to 

20 implement clean energy and efficiency in 

21 Pennsylvania. Our current annual efficiency 

22 targets are half of what many leading states are 

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1 achieving, and our current Tier I clean energy 

2 target is only eight percent, compared to 20 

3 percent for Maryland, 22 percent for New Jersey, 

4 and 25 percent for Delaware.

5 If we simply match the commitments of 

6 other leading states by doubling our commitment 

7 to efficiency, and achieving 20 percent renewable 

8 energy by 2030, we’ll meet over 96 percent of our 

9 proposed carbon reduction target. And that’s 

10 before we even start talking about upgrades to 

11 the power plants, themselves.

12 Energy efficiency saves us money. 

13 Through the first four years of our energy 

14 efficiency program in Pennsylvania, ratepayers 

15 saw savings of nearly 4.2 billion dollars, equal 

16 to $2.40 saved for every dollar invested, and 

17 we’ve only begun to scratch the surface.

18 Efficiency investments create jobs 

19 directly, but also boost the broader economy by 

20 putting more spending money in family’s pockets.

21 Investing in renewable energy also saves 

22 us money. Earlier this year a study was 

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1 conducted by PJM, the regional grid operator, on 

2 the impacts of integrating up to 30 percent 

3 renewable energy by 2026. They found that by 

4 using 30 percent solar and wind we would save up 

5 to 16 billion dollars per year on electricity 

6 production because it would replace the least 

7 efficient and most expensive power plants. 

8 It also found that there would be no 

9 significant reliability issues from phasing in 

10 this level of renewable energy, even with current 

11 technology.

12 Wind and solar also create many more jobs 

13 in natural gas and coal per dollar invested per 

14 megawatt of capacity, and per megawatt hour of 

15 generation. Nationally there are already more 

16 jobs in the wind and solar industry than in coal 

17 mining and coal power generation combined, so the 

18 potential for growth is enormous. 

19 By one estimate, Pennsylvania could 

20 create 500,000 40-year jobs by transitioning to 

21 100 percent renewable energy by 2050, which would 

22 be over ten times more jobs than the coal 

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1 industry in the state currently supports.

2 If we act to limit our carbon pollution, 

3 the coal mining sector will certainly be 

4 impacted. But if we don’t act, everyone else 

5 will be impacted. And that does not mean that we 

6 can neglect mineworkers, their families and 

7 communities like my hometown. We need to commit 

8 to helping them transition just as we have helped 

9 tobacco farming and logging communities 

10 transition in the past. And I’m very confident 

11 that we can do this, but we cannot leave it to 

12 chance.

13 Fortunately, this plan provides a great 

14 deal of flexibility in how states meet their 

15 targets and sufficient planning time for 

16 transition. What we simply cannot afford to do, 

17 however, is wait any longer to address climate 

18 change. The longer we wait, the harder the 

19 transition will be and the worse off we will all 

20 be due to climate disruption. But if we begin 

21 now we can still achieve a cleaner, healthier and 

22 more prosperous future. Thank you very much for 

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1 your time.

2 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you both. Our next 

3 two speakers this afternoon will be James Kotcon 

4 and Rene Hernandez.

5 MR. KOTCON: Thank you. My name is James 

6 Kotcon, K-o-t-c-o-n. I reside at 414 Tyrone 

7 Avery Road in Morgantown, West Virginia. As a 

8 West Virginian I know that a significant portion 

9 of my salary depends on the severance taxes from 

10 our coal mining industry. But I’m here to tell 

11 you today that we need to start taking action on 

12 climate now.

13 I am a born and raised dairy farmer. I 

14 know, and all of the research shows that 

15 temperatures over 90 to 95 degrees significantly 

16 suppress milk production in cows. This is a real 

17 impact on my family’s income.

18 I don’t believe that EPA’s cost analysis 

19 has fully incorporated some of these kinds of 

20 agricultural impacts and I urge you to do a more 

21 careful job of fully analyzing all of the costs 

22 of climate change and the cost of inaction and 

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1 doing nothing.

2 Second -- and I have four points today 

3 -- I currently serve as the Energy Committee 

4 Chair for the Western Chapter of the Sierra Club. 

5 Last year we put together a report conducted by 

6 Optimal Energy which identified as much as five 

7 to 6,000 jobs per year created through 

8 investments in energy efficiency by our 

9 utilities. 

10 Having reviewed EPA’s Clean Power Plan, I 

11 would urge you to increase the energy efficiency 

12 component of those four building blocks. It is 

13 the best way to reduce electric power bills and 

14 create jobs, and clean up the environment.

15 Third, EPA currently uses estimates for 

16 upstream methane emissions from natural gas 

17 production that appear to be grossly 

18 underestimating the impact from natural gas 

19 production. The expectation that we can simply 

20 transition to natural gas appears to undercount 

21 these upstream methane emissions, and I would 

22 urge EPA to increase and more accurately define 

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1 the climate impacts from relying on more natural 

2 gas instead of efficiency renewable sources and 

3 other low carbon sources.

4 Finally, I’ve been fishing for a long 

5 time, and I believe that if we can protect West 

6 Virginia for trout, the rest of the state will 

7 probably do okay. All of the climate models 

8 suggest that our state fish, the brook trout, is 

9 going to disappear if we do not act aggressively.

10 But I think this is more important than 

11 just my recreational activities. Trout fishing 

12 is very important to me, but my kids are more 

13 important. Much of the debate over these rules 

14 seems to be an issue between jobs for the current 

15 generation versus the environment for the next 

16 generation. And I think that as a policy choice 

17 the EPA needs to look out for the next 

18 generation. This generation will take care of 

19 itself.

20 I’ll be submitting more detailed written 

21 comments in the future, but I thank you for the 

22 chance to put a human face on what this is and to 

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1 show that there are people in West Virginia who 

2 support EPA’s climate plan. Thank you.

3 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much.

4 MS. HERNANDEZ: Good afternoon. My name 

5 is Rene Hernandez. I live in Morgantown, West 

6 Virginia. I’ve been a resident there for the 

7 past 40 years. I moved there from the Jersey 

8 Shore. I was a hippy homesteader. 

9 But in the course of my homesteading, and 

10 not knowing anything about farming, I moved on 

11 and went to college and became a registered 

12 nurse. And it’s from that prospective that I 

13 would like to share what I have seen and what I 

14 have experienced in my own body due to pollution.

15 I’ve worked anywhere from newborn 

16 intensive care units all the way to bone marrow 

17 transplant units and other units of oncology in 

18 the course of my career. I worked in the newborn 

19 intensive care unit in Charleston, West Virginia. 

20 It’s well known as Chemical Valley. And 

21 unfortunately, I took care of many babies with 

22 congenital defects and horrible, horrible defects 

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1 that were not only life threatening and 

2 devastating to their health, but devastating to 

3 their appearance also.

4 I took care of young men and old men who 

5 were dying of the black lung disease, which I 

6 don’t know if you’ve ever had any experience in 

7 taking care of anyone who is gasping for breath. 

8 It’s a horrible experience, and when you are in 

9 the midst of doing that, of course, you put aside 

10 your feelings and administer care to those poor 

11 suffering people. Because all you want to do is 

12 stop their suffering.

13 I took care of people in the bone marrow 

14 transplant unit who were suffering from many 

15 myriad amounts of cancers, from breast cancer, 

16 lymphomas, leukemias. I took care of them as 

17 best as I could and they were desperate to live. 

18 Some of them survived, some of them, 

19 unfortunately, developed graft versus host 

20 disease, and that’s one of the worst deaths I’ve 

21 ever seen. It’s horrible.

22 I had one young man who was 22, his skin 

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1 just sloughed off of him completely. No amount 

2 of pain medication would stop his suffering and I 

3 cried and cried. 

4 The people of West Virginia have suffered 

5 for so many years, and yet they’re resilient 

6 people and they’re loving people. But quite 

7 frankly, I think some of them are rather confused 

8 and have been kind of damped down into a 

9 mentality that there’s nothing else we can do but 

10 mine coal. But, indeed, there is. There’s many 

11 things that people can do. We must, we must turn 

12 to clean energy. Our world is dying before our 

13 very eyes. 

14 Just today I saw that our jet stream has 

15 gotten kind of wonky and weak, and scientists 

16 have said they’ve never, ever, ever seen it do 

17 that before.

18 And there is so many things that we’ve 

19 never, ever seen before that pollution has done 

20 to our beautiful world. I plead with you to 

21 maintain and uphold this carbon rule and to 

22 please work on strengthening further rules that 

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1 will protect my children and my grandchildren, 

2 whom I love very much. Thank you for the 

3 opportunity to speak with you. 

4 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much. 

5 Thanks for coming. Our next two speakers this 

6 afternoon will be Jessie Shumacher and Barry 

7 Lewis.

8 MS. SHUMACHER: Hello. I am Jessie 

9 Shumacher, Policy Analyst at the Keystone Energy 

10 Efficiency Alliance. 

11 KEEA, the Keystone Energy Efficiency 

12 Alliance is a non-profit corporation dedicated to 

13 promoting energy efficiency and advanced energy 

14 industries in Pennsylvania. You’ll hear later 

15 this afternoon from our executive director, Brian 

16 Kauffman, as well. 

17 KEEA supports the Clean Power Plan as a 

18 commonsense solution for energy needs, and KEEA 

19 supports the plan’s inclusion of demand side 

20 energy efficiency as one of the four major tools 

21 available to states to achieve pollution 

22 reduction.

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1 Brian is going to talk later about the 

2 job creating impacts of demand side energy 

3 efficiency investments in Pennsylvania. My 

4 testimony is to compliment that with an 

5 expression that Pennsylvania is ready for these 

6 jobs, and Pennsylvania is ready for this plan.

7 Here in Pennsylvania we have been 

8 administering demand side energy efficiency 

9 programs under Pennsylvania Act 129 since 2009. 

10 And Act 129 has given us a framework upon which 

11 Pennsylvania can build, and given us experience 

12 that provides insight we can extend to the EPA.

13 Demand side energy efficiency has proven 

14 to be an effective way to produce carbon 

15 pollution associated with electricity generation 

16 in our state. From 2009 to 2013 Pennsylvania 

17 saved more than five million megawatt hours of 

18 electricity, which equated to almost 

19 three-and-a-half million tons of avoided carbon 

20 dioxide emissions.

21 During the same period demand side energy 

22 efficiency provided a great benefit to ratepayers 

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1 who received approximately $2.40 in benefits for 

2 every one dollar invested in energy efficiency.

3 It was also the lowest cost energy 

4 resource available to our retail electricity 

5 customers during that time. The residential 

6 retail rate of electricity was approximately 74 

7 percent higher in 2013 than the retail -- than 

8 the cost to a retail residential customer of 

9 demand side energy efficiency on a per kilowatt 

10 basis.

11 Brian is going to talk later about how 

12 demand side energy efficiency can create jobs in 

13 Pennsylvania. The people who are here doing 

14 these jobs now have built a vibrant and powerful 

15 implementation framework under Act 129, so we’re 

16 ready for this Clean Power Plan. 

17 Act 129 provides Pennsylvania with plug 

18 and play implementation for achievement under the 

19 plan. And we’re able to scale up very quickly, 

20 much faster than EPA has allowed for in its 

21 efficiency -- energy efficiency potential 

22 estimate in the Clean Power Plan.

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1 We can likely, therefore, achieve 

2 significantly more cost effective energy 

3 efficiency than EPA estimates. Pennsylvania is 

4 particularly proud of the work that our Public 

5 Utility Commission has done to provide certainty 

6 to utilities, to ratepayers, to home and business 

7 owners and to investors.

8 Pennsylvania has developed and tested one 

9 of the nation’s most robust frameworks for 

10 measurement and verification for demand side 

11 energy efficiency measures.

12 This has really established the 

13 credibility of our Act 129 programs. And the PUC 

14 has also assembled a technical reference manual 

15 that attributes savings values to a myriad of 

16 energy efficiency technologies in which home and 

17 business owners can invest.

18 This has really given a lot of clarity to 

19 investors, be they large or small on the 

20 household level. KEEA encourages EPA to adopt a 

21 framework or to facilitate states use of existing 

22 rigorous frameworks that similarly establish 

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1 credibility and give clarity to the benefits of 

2 myriad demand side energy efficiency investments 

3 that are possible.

4 KEEA supports this Clean Power Plan and 

5 encourages EPA to enable and support state’s 

6 deployment of demand side energy efficiency to 

7 meet the plan’s pollution reduction goals.

8 Energy efficiency is the fastest, 

9 cheapest, most economically beneficial way to 

10 reduce carbon pollution, and KEEA is pleased that 

11 EPA has put forth a plan to reduce carbon 

12 pollution and include a demand side energy 

13 efficiency in that.

14 Efficiency can do more in Pennsylvania 

15 than EPA expects, and KEEA looks forward to 

16 helping Pennsylvania achieve the goals set forth 

17 by EPA in the Clean Power Plan. Thank you.

18 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much.

19 MR. LEWIS: My name is Barry Lewis, 

20 B-a-r-r-y, L-e-w-i-s, and I am honored to be here 

21 today representing the Reverend Dr. Jane Ellen 

22 Nickel, who was scheduled to speak at this time, 

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1 but was unable to be here. And I have her 

2 statement and will offer it in a moment.

3 First, let me tell you more about who I 

4 am. I’m a retired United Methodist Pastor, 

5 retiring from the Sewickley United Methodist 

6 Church in 2006. I am a Pittsburgh native, very 

7 much aware of the air and water quality issue for 

8 this region.

9 I am aware of the successes that have 

10 occurred since the 1940's. But as the science 

11 shows us, there is much more to be done. The 

12 European countries know this. Last summer I was 

13 in Germany and Holland and saw an abundance of 

14 solar panels and wind generators. 

15 We, at our house, also have 34 solar 

16 panels on our roof that have generated 23,140 

17 kilowatt hours in almost four years.

18 Now I will be Dr. Jane Ellen Nickel, a 

19 United Methodist Clergy, also Chaplain of 

20 Allegheny College. So these are her words. 

21 “As a person of faith, I wholeheartedly 

22 support the Clean Power Plan as an important step 

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1 to curb global climate change and secure a more 

2 sustainable future. I believe that we have 

3 drastically altered the world God created, and 

4 that those least able to cope with those effects 

5 will suffer the most.” 

6 Jane Ellen refers here to the Genesis 

7 story of creation and the human’s responsibility 

8 to care for it. With her permission I will 

9 include here a teaching from a dear mentor, 

10 Biblical scholar, the late Dr. Harold Beck, 

11 Professor of Old Testament at Boston School of 

12 Theology.

13 When he said the Bible begins with a 

14 story of a garden, Eden, the Babylonian word for 

15 garden. It ends with a story of a garden, 

16 Paradise, the Persian word for garden. What 

17 happens in between is the human story, for better 

18 or for worse.

19 And Jane Ellen continues. “Yet we have 

20 ravaged our earthly garden in extracting fossil 

21 fuels, and in burning them have filled the air 

22 with carbon, arsenic, mercury, sulfur dioxide and 

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1 other pollutants, altering the climate and 

2 poisoning the air that we breathe.”

3 “Children, elderly, and those in poor 

4 health are most vulnerable to asthma and other 

5 breathing problems. Likewise, people on the 

6 margins of society will be most affected by 

7 rising sea levels, severe storms and other 

8 effects of climate change.”

9 “Seeing our weakest members suffer for 

10 the actions of us all is a moral problem. As a 

11 native West Virginian and current resident of 

12 Pennsylvania, I am keenly aware of the jobs in 

13 coal mining and other sectors of the fossil fuel 

14 industry that will be lost as we transition to 

15 renewable energy.” 

16 “However, another injustice is 

17 perpetuated when those in the coal industry 

18 proclaim that coal is the energy of the future 

19 and that it can be burned cleanly with no harm to 

20 our planet or our children.”

21 “While coal has a long and important 

22 history in providing energy in this country, the 

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1 future belongs to renewable fuels such as winds, 

2 solar and geothermal, and to energy efficient 

3 technologies that reduce our dependence on fossil 

4 fuels.” 

5 “Our country’s genius for invention can 

6 drive a transition to a more sustainable energy. 

7 Rather than using scare tactics and propaganda, 

8 coal companies should take the lead in creating a 

9 green economy and providing new jobs for those 

10 who will be displaced.” 

11 “Rather than blaming the Obama 

12 administration, miners and their families should 

13 demand that their industry and their states 

14 address the reality that coal’s best days are 

15 behind us and that it is time to transition to 

16 cleaner renewable fuels. It’s time to stop 

17 blowing up our mountains and blow up our business 

18 as usual. The EPA Clean Power Plan is an 

19 important step in making that a reality.” She 

20 ends there.

21 And may I conclude with this wise 

22 statement I often quoted throughout my active 

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1 ministry, a statement from native Americans. 

2 Before making a decision they would ask, how will 

3 this decision affect those living seven 

4 generations from now. I can only imagine how 

5 clean our water, rivers, lakes and air would be 

6 if we were as wise. Thank you for this 

7 opportunity.

8 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much. 

9 Okay, I apologize to these two speakers. 

10 I flipped the last cards. You should have been 

11 next, so it’s my fault that you’re going now. 

12 Joylette Portlock and Brian Kauffman.

13 MS. PORTLOCK: Hello. Good afternoon and 

14 thank you very much for organizing this forum 

15 about the Clean Power Plan. I’m Dr. Joylette 

16 Portlock, and among my many hats, I’m the 

17 President of the non-profit organization, 

18 Communitopia. We do climate communication in a 

19 fond engaging way, most prominently through our 

20 online series, Don’t Just Sit There, Do 

21 Something, which blends climate science news and 

22 empowers viewers with action.

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1 Our organization is based here in 

2 Pittsburgh. Though, obviously, global warming is 

3 not something that just affects us here now, but 

4 rather affects everyone everywhere, from now 

5 until the long horizon of time. 

6 There is a lot to cover, so hopefully 

7 making You Tube videos may be better at speaking 

8 in five-minute increments.

9 So I saw coverage of the Pro Coal Event 

10 yesterday, and there are protesters outside, and 

11 I have to say it is sort of refreshing to be 

12 celebrating other government action rather than 

13 the one staging a protest. But you know, I’m not 

14 actually a big fan of the us versus them framing 

15 here, because we all want the same things.

16 We want economic prospects. We want a 

17 bright, healthy future for our kids. We want 

18 stability and security. And here’s the secret. 

19 By acting on climate change, it’s not just the 

20 environmental movement that wins. Gains are 

21 possible on all of these fronts.

22 The Clean Power Plan is an essential 

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1 critical tool in the fight against manmade 

2 climate change. EPA is finally doing what 

3 Congress established it to do and what the 

4 Supreme Court mandated be done under President 

5 Bush, by regulating carbon pollution through the 

6 power of the Clean Air Act.

7 EPA is to be commended for taking its job 

8 seriously and beginning the long task of reducing 

9 our carbon pollution levels to something 

10 approximating safe.

11 The plan aims to reduce pollution 30 

12 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. The 

13 scientific community has agreed that to avoid the 

14 worst effects of climate change, we need an 80 

15 percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2050. This 

16 rule is, therefore, not an end solution, but the 

17 beginning. The first of the real world policies 

18 we need to transition us to a better place.

19 One thing I’ve noticed is that when you 

20 start talking about climate solutions, real 

21 policy that makes a difference, you start hearing 

22 a lot of can’ts. Now, I don’t know about anyone 

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1 here, but can’t was a four letter word in my 

2 parent’s household when I was growing up.

3 Everything I know about America says that 

4 we can do this. The spirit of innovation, 

5 optimism, and plain old willingness to roll up 

6 our sleeves and do the hard work that needs to be 

7 done will triumph over fear. And by the way, 

8 that’s backed up by 83 percent of Americans 

9 across the political spectrum who want the U.S. 

10 to make an effort to reduce global warming, even 

11 if those efforts come with an economic cost.

12 No one is trying to say that change is 

13 easy. Do we need to make sure that our workers 

14 aren’t left behind and that the clean energy 

15 transition works for everything? Absolutely. 

16 But we are on the path to unthinkable 

17 damage from climate change. Yes, the natural 

18 world, but also to billions of real people’s 

19 lives, a world plagued by rising seas and violent 

20 storms, parched farmland and forests on fire. If 

21 you think this is going to cost too much right 

22 now, just wait.

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1 Change may be hard, but sometimes it’s 

2 necessary. And a world where the air is safe to 

3 breathe and fuel is plentiful and clean sounds a 

4 lot easier to me. 

5 One of the most remarkable things about 

6 the Clean Power Plan is its flexibility with 

7 state specific targets for overall pollution and 

8 advice for renewable energy and energy 

9 efficiency, and leaving it up to the states to 

10 craft plans. I have to commend EPA for doing a 

11 truly remarkable amount of listening before, 

12 during and after putting this plan together. 

13 Pennsylvania, a coal state with lots of 

14 natural gas development, is going to craft a plan 

15 that won’t look like Idaho’s or California’s. 

16 The Clean Power Plan gives us the opportunity to 

17 reduce carbon pollution and build new energy 

18 industries while working together to ensure 

19 economic, environmental and health gains for all.

20 Again, by acting on climate change, it is 

21 not just the environmental movement that wins, 

22 it’s the person looking for a job that finds one 

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1 in the clean energy economy who wins. It’s the 

2 kids with asthma who win. It’s all the future 

3 people who will look back at all of us and say 

4 thank you, and now what were you people thinking?

5 At the end of the day there is only one 

6 side. There is only one collective future. This 

7 rule puts us one step closer to pulling or 

8 collective fannies out of the fire. So I support 

9 this rule and every step that we will need to 

10 take after this was finalized to back away from 

11 the precipice and towards all the good things a 

12 stable climate and a clean energy future will 

13 give us because I’m on humanity’s side. Thank 

14 you. 

15 MR. KAUFFMAN: Good morning. My name is 

16 Brian Kauffman, B-r-i-a-n, K-a-u-f-f-m-a-n, of 

17 Philadelphia. I am Executive Director of the 

18 Keystone Energy Efficiency Alliance, a trade 

19 association of 65 businesses and individuals 

20 working in the energy efficiency industry here in 

21 Pennsylvania.

22 We have member companies here in 

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1 Pittsburgh, along with cities like Erie, and 

2 Scranton and Philly, and plenty of smaller towns 

3 as well. 

4 As you have heard from our Policy 

5 Analyst, Pennsylvania is ready, and our decision 

6 makers and utilities are ready to just use our 

7 current energy efficiency policies and connect 

8 and plug and play, essentially, with the Clean 

9 Power Plan.

10 KEEA supports this Clean Power Plan as a 

11 commonsense solution. Empower states to flexibly 

12 meet these greenhouse gas reduction goals that 

13 are important for our economy, national security 

14 and public health. KEEA, in particular, supports 

15 the plan’s inclusion of demand side energy 

16 efficiency as one of the four major pollution 

17 reducing tools available to the states.

18 First and foremost, the EPA plan can be a 

19 boon, a source of tremendous strength to our 

20 state’s economy and create jobs. And the jobs 

21 discussion is something I want to add to today.

22 First and foremost, this is not an act 

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1 that some workers will be negative -- can be 

2 negatively displaced by this policy, and I 

3 encourage the EPA to very strongly consider how 

4 they treat all aspects of our economy. 

5 And energy efficiency alone can’t move 

6 our economy forward. As you have heard from 

7 others, clean coal, natural gas, renewables also 

8 present solutions to climate change. And as a 

9 net energy exporter, Pennsylvania’s economy can 

10 benefit from continuing our competitive advantage 

11 in energy generation.

12 KEEA supports Pennsylvania and other 

13 states taking advantage of this range of 

14 solutions. However, demand side energy 

15 efficiency, using less energy to perform the same 

16 energy services presents a key area that can 

17 support our economy and reduce greenhouse gases. 

18 Pennsylvania’s residents, businesses and industry 

19 spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year 

20 on energy efficiency investments because they 

21 make business sense.

22 But more can be done. For instance, Rich 

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1 Selverian, our CFO and COO of MaGrann Associates, 

2 a national company, he’s president of our 

3 organization, recently talked about a project his 

4 firm had done. Energy efficiency, he said, can 

5 save people and business a lot of money. 

6 Recently we did a project at a 321 unit 

7 apartment building upgrading equipment that will 

8 save the customer an estimated $39,000 off their 

9 electricity bills and $150,000 off their natural 

10 gas bills every year, a 17 percent reduction in 

11 their electricity bill and 55 percent in their 

12 gas bill. This is real money and has the 

13 potential to actually positively innovate our 

14 economy.

15 In particular, energy efficiency can have 

16 a myriad of other benefits from helping support 

17 field diversity, improve reliability, reducing 

18 everyone’s customer utility bills, and lastly, it 

19 can create and has created jobs.

20 And much can be said about all these 

21 points. KEEA has submitted written testimony 

22 today detailing all of them as well as offering 

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1 some recommendations to EPA on how the proposed 

2 plan could be improved.

3 But most importantly today, the Clean 

4 Power Plan will create jobs in Pennsylvania. We 

5 have already seen the job creation impact of 

6 demand side energy efficiency. Pennsylvania’s 

7 Governor, Tom Corbett, and his energy plan 

8 released in January stated a booking study that 

9 reported that Pennsylvania has the fifth highest 

10 number of energy and resource efficiency jobs in 

11 the nation with over 42,000 employees.

12 And another recent study showed that Act 

13 129 our energy efficiency resource standard here 

14 in PA may have created over 10,000 jobs. 

15 In addition, looking forward, the 

16 American Counsel for an Energy Efficient Economy 

17 projects that almost 8,000 new efficiency jobs 

18 could be created by 2020 and almost 17,000 by 

19 2030 if Pennsylvania utilizes demand side 

20 reductions to meet the Clean Power Plan.

21 Our businesses, we have 65 entrepreneurs 

22 and businesses who can actually speak to these. 

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1 We work in a range of functions from 

2 construction, to manufacturing, to finance, to 

3 engineering and computer programming. These jobs 

4 are attractive because young Pennsylvanians, the 

5 future of our economy see them as ways to create 

6 opportunities for themselves and also rise 

7 throughout their careers in these fields. These 

8 jobs can be accessed by folks graduating high 

9 school and folks graduating from PhD’s. 

10 I know my time is out, so thank you very 

11 much for this opportunity and keep up what you’re 

12 doing.

13 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much. 

14 Thanks to both of you. 

15 Our next two speakers this afternoon will 

16 be Sally Wenzel and Monica Morrill.

17 MS. WENZEL: Thank you. Hi. My name is 

18 Dr. Sally Wenzel, W-e-n-z-e-l. I’m director of 

19 the University of Pittsburgh Asthma Institute at 

20 UPMC and the Subsection Chief of Allergy in the 

21 Pulmonary Allergy and Critical Care Medicine 

22 Division at the University of Pittsburgh.

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1 But today I’m actually speaking to you on 

2 behalf of the American Thoracic Society. The 

3 American Thoracic Society is a very large medical 

4 professional society of over 14,000 physicians, 

5 scientists, nurses and allied health 

6 professionals dedicated to the detection, 

7 prevention, treatment and the cure of respiratory 

8 critical care and sleep related diseases. 

9 The American Thoracic Society today 

10 wishes to express our very strong support for 

11 EPA’s proposed carbon emission standards for 

12 power plants.

13 The leadership of the ATS believes 

14 strongly that the research documenting the 

15 reality of climate change is comprehensive and 

16 very compelling. The evidence supporting 

17 anthropogenic contribution to climate change is 

18 equally clear. For these reasons the ATS 

19 support’s EPA’s proposals to establish limits for 

20 carbon emissions from existing power plants. 

21 The ATS, itself, recently published a 

22 workshop report on the likely respiratory health 

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1 effects of climate change, climate change, 

2 itself, including longer and earlier growing 

3 seasons leading to longer and more intense 

4 allergy seasons and the consequences thereof.

5 Warmer average temperatures, increasing 

6 ozone and particulate matter pollution is of 

7 concern to all patients with all types of 

8 respiratory disease. 

9 Heat stress from heat waves will increase 

10 morbidity, especially in urban hot spots. For 

11 example, the 1995 heat wave in Chicago was 

12 estimated to have killed about 750 people.

13 Changing climates will also likely impact 

14 vector borne diseases and potentially potentiate 

15 their spread. 

16 Intense storms will put pressure on 

17 healthcare systems. For example, the evacuation 

18 and temporary shutdown of Bellevue Hospital in 

19 New York for Hurricane Sandy, and the citywide 

20 evacuation and the devastation of New Orleans 

21 from Hurricane Katrina.

22 My area of research and clinical 

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1 expertise is asthma, so I will focus on how 

2 climate change will effect patients with asthma. 

3 About 25 million patients in America have the 

4 disease called asthma, and nearly half suffer an 

5 asthma attack on an annual basis.

6 Asthma attacks are frequently caused by 

7 environmental exposures, including pollens, 

8 molds, ozone and particulate matter. Climate 

9 change will increase our exposures to these 

10 environmental triggers for asthma attacks. 

11 Ground level ozone and particulate matter 

12 are formed when heat, sunlight and precursor 

13 pollutants combine in the air to create air 

14 pollution.

15 As the average global temperature rises, 

16 conditions leading to ozone and particulate 

17 matter air pollution are going to increase, 

18 leading to even more air pollution.

19 The additional air pollution will trigger 

20 additional asthma attacks, emergency room visits, 

21 missed school, work days, et cetera, as well as 

22 hospitalizations and even death. In short, 

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1 climate change will exacerbate air pollution, 

2 directly impacting the lives of about 25 million 

3 people who suffer with asthma.

4 U.S. power plants net nearly one-third of 

5 all the carbon pollution emissions in the U.S. 

6 And in fact, felt particularly strongly here in 

7 Western Pennsylvania.

8 They also emit other dangerous pollutants 

9 like mercury, ozone and particulate matter. The 

10 emitted power plant pollution has a measurable 

11 and substantial impact, negative impact on 

12 patient health, particularly in patients with 

13 asthma, cardiovascular and other respiratory 

14 diseases.

15 But all is not gloom and doom. A recent 

16 study by scientists at Syracuse and Harvard 

17 showed that cleaning up carbon pollution will, in 

18 fact, clean up other forms of pollution as well. 

19 This means that we can have healthy air today 

20 while we take steps to address climate change for 

21 the future.

22 Effective limits on carbon pollution are 

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1 estimated to reduce about 775,000 tons annually 

2 of coal pollutants like sulfur dioxide, nitrogen 

3 oxide and mercury, and to decrease ozone and 

4 particulate matter, all serious health hazards 

5 that increase the risk for asthma attacks, affect 

6 fetal development and contribute to premature 

7 death.

8 That’s why it’s important for the 

9 environmental protection agency to move forward

10 with strong limits on carbon pollution. When 

11 implemented, this plan will reduce carbon 

12 emissions by 30 percent from the 2005 levels and 

13 bring health and climate related benefits of an 

14 estimated 55 million to 93 billion dollars, 

15 including avoiding 2,700 to over 6,000 premature 

16 deaths, and 140 to 150,000 asthma attacks in kids 

17 alone.

18 Reducing carbon emissions will improve 

19 air quality now while addressing climate change 

20 in the future. Thank you, and I’d be happy to 

21 address questions.

22 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much.

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1 MS. MORRILL: My name is Monica Morrill, 

2 and I would first like to state for the record 

3 that my statement can only be quoted if my entire 

4 statement is quoted. Many will understand that 

5 the people have been quoted out of context and 

6 the meaning twisted. If you insist on quoting a 

7 partial version of my statement today, you must 

8 first obtain my express written consent.

9 My name is Monica Morrill, M-o-r-r-i-l-l. 

10 When asked what organization I belong to, well, 

11 I’m a citizen of the United States. It is for 

12 this group for whom I speak.

13 I have a degree in Environmental 

14 Economics and Policy from the University of 

15 California at Berkeley. I have written 

16 extensively about policy or regulation that 

17 influences geography. Some in my family tease me 

18 endearingly for being a tree hugger. And yes, I 

19 love trees, but I also love people.

20 I know people who work in and around the 

21 coal industry who are afraid to come forward due 

22 to fears of retaliation from the state of federal 

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1 government institutions, namely the DEP and the 

2 EPA.

3 Just yesterday I spoke with someone who 

4 was laid off from his 23-year coal industry job 

5 who is in serious depression. He said he has 

6 never seen it this bad in the coal business. 

7 There is undoubtedly a war on coal by the EPA and 

8 the White House.

9 I will briefly cover three phases that 

10 have brought us to this juncture of the proposed 

11 Clean Power Plan. How we get here, where we are 

12 now and what the citizens of America can do to 

13 prepare for the crises ahead.

14 Number one, how we got here. 

15 Unfortunately, many environmental regulations 

16 have been founded on a lack of facts. The EPA 

17 claims on its document, quote, “There are 

18 currently no national limits on carbon,” unquote, 

19 and implies that carbon is just as toxic as 

20 arsenic or mercury. 

21 This is absurd. CO2 is just as important 

22 to a life as oxygen, water and sunshine. Plants 

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1 need CO2 and plants can’t photosynthesize below 

2 150 parts per million. A level too low would 

3 destroy our planet.

4 During the depths of the last Ice Age 

5 when the cold oceans lowered the atmospheric 

6 concentration down to 180 parts per million, 

7 trees suffered from carbon dioxide starvation. 

8 Life above sea level almost died out due to the 

9 lack of carbon dioxide.

10 Now, some claim that the current 

11 concentration is still dangerously low, and the 

12 CO2 level would have to increase fivefold just to 

13 get back to the level it was when the flowering 

14 plants first emerged.

15 The higher the CO2 concentration, the 

16 safer all life on this planet will be. 

17 Furthermore, the relationship between the 

18 concentration and heating is log arrhythmic, not 

19 arithmetic. For CO2, that means the first 20 

20 parts per million has the same amount of heating 

21 effect as the next 400 parts per million. CO2's 

22 heating effect is real but minuscule.

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1 That effect would be lost in the natural 

2 variation of climate. On top of all that, our 

3 climate is cooling. Climate models that the EPA 

4 relies upon have been proven wrong by the fact 

5 that the temperature of the planet has been flat 

6 for the last eighteen years.

7 The EPA writes that the -- sorry. That 

8 the quote, “average temperatures have risen in 

9 most states since 1901, with seven of the top ten 

10 warmest years on record occurring since 1998,” 

11 unquote. Again, the EPA is incorrect. 

12 If you look at NOAA’s research and the 

13 well positioned U.S. climate stations all over 

14 our country, our national temperature has 

15 actually cooled between January 2005 until now, 

16 even the deep oceans have cooled.

17 It is time to set aside the climate 

18 models and start again. One of my favorite 

19 example, because I love history and research, we 

20 can even look to the past wisdom, before the EPA, 

21 before politics started meddling with the 

22 weather, and Government grants and observe what 

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1 Harvard scientist, Dr. Harlow Shapley wrote in a 

2 book entitled Climatic Change in 1953. This is 

3 from the fifth printing in 1970. 

4 “Why climate changes and what it changes 

5 due to the earth and living things is the central 

6 subject of this book. Man is apparently the only 

7 animal that can affect climate and he does it 

8 through cutting down the forests, pouring dust 

9 and gas into the atmosphere from his factory 

10 chimneys and setting forest fires.” 

11 “But these are trivial contributions 

12 compared with what the big volcanos can do and 

13 what is accomplished by the rise of mountain 

14 ranges in rerouting the air currents. And the 

15 prime mover turns out to be a star. The sun. At 

16 a distance of 93 million miles. It is apparently 

17 not absolutely steady, and one of the results 

18 seems to be the reoccurrence of Ice Ages,” 

19 unquote.

20 The EPA’s proposed emission regulations 

21 are unnecessary. They will prove to be very 

22 foolish and extraordinarily expensive. Even 

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1 worse, the EPA’s proposed rules will have the 

2 effect of making us much poorer for no good 

3 reason.

4 Number two, where we are now. Where the 

5 American’s were once the host to freedom in our 

6 government, we have now become hostages to our 

7 governments. 

8 Number three, what citizens of America 

9 can do to prepare themselves for the crises 

10 ahead. Notice I didn’t say crisis, but crises. 

11 There will be will many. The greed and overreach 

12 of the EPA is fraught with lies. This is simply 

13 because those in power and the EPA, and other 

14 branches of government are taking us hostage.

15 One, to those in the media, particularly 

16 news anchors and investigative reporters, you 

17 have just heard a few minutes of truth after 

18 being told years of lies. You are left with an 

19 immeasurable duty to tell the truth to the 

20 public. Please do not let your fellow Americans 

21 down. History will judge you on whether you held 

22 the light of truth high.

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1 To all, if the EPA ignores us again, 

2 please be prepared for high electricity prices 

3 and rolling blackouts, but never forget that it 

4 was our own government that caused this.

5 Three, vote responsibly. We’re obligated 

6 to --

7 MR. WAYLAND: Ma’am, ma’am --

8 MS. MORRILL: -- be aware of where our 

9 elected --

10 MR. WAYLAND: Ma’am, your time --

11 MS. MORRILL: -- public service stand --

12 MR. WAYLAND: -- your time is up --

13 MS. MORRILL: -- on our energy policy --

14 MR. WAYLAND: -- and we’ve let you go on 

15 for an additional two minutes. You need to 

16 conclude, please.

17 MS. MORRILL: In conclusion, the EPA 

18 thinks that it can change the debate by shifting 

19 the rhetoric from the global warming to climate 

20 change and clean power, but that’s the same old 

21 game under different titles.

22 As a U.S. citizen I demand this disgrace 

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1 of extending the tentacles of government power 

2 and control stop. There are people who work for 

3 a living and there are people who lie for a 

4 living. What has the EPA become? Sadly, an 

5 agency with people who lie for a living. 

6 Today the Americans are finally learning 

7 that the government of the people is a government 

8 run by liars, a government perpetuating fraud on 

9 us all. A government of self-interest rather 

10 than a government of the people’s interest.

11 It is clear the EPA has a political 

12 agenda, not a commonsense agenda. This is 

13 problematic --

14 MR. WAYLAND: Ms. Morrill, you are going 

15 to have to stop.

16 MS. MORRILL: We, the people founded the 

17 organization for which you work.

18 MS. WENZEL: This is not fair to the rest 

19 of the speakers.

20 MS. MORRILL: We say no more EPA rules. 

21 Thank you. 

22 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you. Our next two 

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1 speakers this afternoon will be Lindsey Mosely 

2 Alexander and Michael Butler.

3 MS. MOSELEY-ALEXANDER: Good afternoon. 

4 My name is Lindsey Moseley-Alexander, it’s 

5 M-o-s-e-l-e-y, Alexander, A-l-e-x-a-n-d-e-r. I 

6 just want to start by thanking you for the 

7 opportunity to speak today. I think it’s a 

8 really important forum for all voices to be 

9 heard. So thank you for taking the time and for 

10 your patience to hear from everyone.

11 I am the Assistant Vice-President and 

12 Director of the Healthy Air Campaign for the 

13 American Lung Association, and I just want to 

14 share a little bit. There has been a lot who 

15 question health benefits, cleaning up carbon 

16 pollution from power plants. So I hope to shed 

17 just a little bit of light on that, although I 

18 don’t think I can do a better job than Dr. 

19 Wenzel, who shared her expertise. So I’m 

20 thankful to her as well.

21 MR. WAYLAND: Could you pause for just a 

22 second?

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1 MS. MOSELEY-ALEXANDER: Yeah.

2 MR. WAYLAND: Could we close the doors? 

3 I know it’s hard to hear in this room, and 

4 there’s a lot of undercurrent going on. Okay, 

5 thanks.

6 MS. MOSELEY-ALEXANDER: The American Lung 

7 Association is absolutely committed to fighting 

8 carbon pollution because it saves lives and helps 

9 improve lung health, which is our mission.

10 As you have heard a number of times, but 

11 it’s really important to repeat it, even with the 

12 steps that are in place right now to reduce air 

13 pollution, evidence warns that higher 

14 temperatures due to carbon pollution and climate 

15 change will increase the risk of unhealthy air in 

16 large parts of the United States, because heat 

17 enhances conditions for ozone formation and 

18 particulate matter.

19 And as a nation, we have come a long way 

20 in the fight to reduce air pollution, in part 

21 because of the tremendous leadership that the EPA 

22 has shown. But it’s clear we still have a very 

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1 long way to go to ensure that the air we breathe 

2 doesn’t make people sick or kill them.

3 And we certainly don’t want to see air 

4 pollution in our nation get worse because of 

5 climate change.

6 For those who live with chronic lung 

7 diseases, pollution like ozone and particulate 

8 matter, which are exacerbated by climate change 

9 can cause difficulty breathing, sugar asthma 

10 attacks and premature death, and have even been 

11 linked to low birth weight in newborns, which 

12 affects them for the rest of their lives.

13 Children are especially vulnerable 

14 because their airways are still developing. Even

15 healthy children with long term exposure to ozone 

16 can experience lung damage that puts them at 

17 greater risk later in life. 

18 And we now know that particulate matter 

19 also causes lung cancer, which is the number one 

20 cancer killer in women, as well as being linked 

21 to heart attacks and strokes.

22 Worsened air quality in large parts of 

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1 the United States is not the only health impacts 

2 we’re concerned about when it comes to climate 

3 change. The recent national climate assessment 

4 highlights other very critical concerns that are 

5 already impacting our nation today, including 

6 heat waves, wildfires, drought, flooding, dust 

7 storms and much more, and we cannot ignore the 

8 serious public health impacts of these events.

9 Reducing carbon pollution form power 

10 plants is an important step in the right 

11 direction. 

12 The American Lung Association also 

13 celebrates the good news that taking steps to 

14 reduce carbon pollution from existing power 

15 plants will also cut emissions of other life 

16 threatening pollutants, nitrogen oxide, sulfur 

17 dioxide and mercury.

18 And this is a win-win for the American 

19 people. Why? Well, let’s look at what these 

20 pollutants do. Nitrogen oxides irritate the 

21 lungs, trigger asthma attacks and increase the 

22 risk of infection. Sulfur dioxide triggers 

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1 asthma attacks and increases risks of 

2 hospitalization and emergency room visits. 

3 These pollutants are also known as 

4 precursors to ozone and particulate matter, which 

5 were previously discussed, and everyone knows 

6 that mercury is a dangerous neurotoxin.

7 It is vital that EPA both calculate and 

8 inform the public of these very important 

9 lifesaving co-benefits of reducing pollution from 

10 power plants, so thank you for doing that.

11 In closing I want to share a few areas 

12 where the American Lung Association sees 

13 opportunities for improvement in the rule, and 

14 also to let you know that we’ll share more 

15 details on these recommendations in our technical 

16 comments, but I just wanted to highlight a few 

17 things for you.

18 To adequately protect public health, we 

19 believe that EPA needs to adopt greater 

20 reductions in carbon pollution and any other 

21 pollutants than what have been outlined in this 

22 proposal. 

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1 The American Lung Association then 

2 strongly urges you to strengthen the state 

3 emission reduction targets and provide --

4 therefore providing greater immediate and long 

5 term health benefits.

6 We also urge EPA to shorten the time 

7 frame for compliance to five years, without 

8 setting weaker standards to accommodate the 

9 shorter time frame. And you should know that the 

10 American Lung Association does not support 

11 biomass combustion for electricity production, 

12 and we would encourage you to revise the plan to 

13 exclude biomass combustion as an acceptable 

14 alternative energy source.

15 And finally, EPA must ensure that the 

16 Clean Power Plan provides real relief to 

17 communities located near power plants who have 

18 suffered the impacts of plant pollution for 

19 decades. 

20 And then the last request, of course, is 

21 that you quickly and clearly spell out the 

22 process for your Federal Implementation Plan, 

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1 that when states fail to meet their requirements, 

2 what’s the plan and how do you get them into 

3 compliance? That’s very important to us.

4 And as I mentioned, we’ll share more 

5 technical comments, but thank you again for the 

6 opportunity to speak.

7 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much.

8 MR. BUTLER: My name is Michael Butler, 

9 M-i-c-h-a-e-l, B-u-t-l-e-r. And I serve as the 

10 Executive Director of the Consumer Energy 

11 Alliance Mid-Atlantic Chapter.

12 CEA is a nationwide association made of 

13 both energy consumers and producers working to 

14 advance in all off the above energy policy that 

15 will lower energy cost for every American. 

16 Access to affordable energy is of the utmost 

17 importance to our members, because every dollar 

18 spent on energy is a dollar that cannot be spent 

19 on capital improvements, payroll, savings, 

20 groceries or next year’s family vacation.

21 In order to create economic growth, it is 

22 important for the Government to implement 

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1 policies that will ensure affordable, reliable 

2 energy supplies to America’s families, farms, 

3 factories and small businesses.

4 If finalized as proposed, regulations on 

5 existing electric generating units will 

6 undoubtedly cause reliable and affordability 

7 concerns for many states, particularly those that 

8 utilize coal for a large portion of their 

9 electricity generation. This is a particularly 

10 acute problem in the mid-Atlantic and Midwest 

11 where many states, including Indiana, Iowa, 

12 Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and 

13 many more rely on coal power generation for more 

14 than 40 percent of their electricity needs.

15 As proposed, these regulations would 

16 force states to enact policies which would 

17 require utilities and electric cooperatives to 

18 prematurely shut down coal fired power plants, 

19 either through the implementation of fuel 

20 switching requirements or renewable fuel 

21 mandates, which will likely lead to higher 

22 electricity prices for energy consumers.

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1 Given the nature of our electric grid, a 

2 buck changes in our energy mix, particularly ones 

3 that have not been contemplated throughout the 

4 development of the grid, or will reduce dispatch 

5 options and disrupt the fueled diversification 

6 that has been critical to low electric cost.

7 Additional plant closures will continue 

8 to have a real and negative impact on state and 

9 local economies. For the most vulnerable among 

10 us, including low income families and seniors 

11 living on a fixed budget, higher electricity 

12 costs cannot easily be absorbed. In essence, 

13 they are a regressive tax. 

14 While natural gas, nuclear alternative 

15 and renewable electricity generation have become 

16 much more important part of the fuel mix over the 

17 past several decades, and are certainly capable 

18 of increasing their contributions to the grid. 

19 Developing additional capacity from these sources 

20 and a necessary infrastructure to realize these 

21 expansions will take time and likely come with 

22 significant costs to consumers.

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1 We would also like to point out the EPA’s 

2 aggressive timeline allows states only one year 

3 to develop a very complex plan that will need to 

4 address a series of adjustments to their 

5 electricity generation consumption, energy 

6 infrastructure that will come from forcing a 

7 change in the energy mix. 

8 States have historically been given 

9 several years to develop and implement 

10 regulations for criteria pollutants that are a 

11 tiny fraction of the size and scope of the 

12 proposed regulations that we are discussing 

13 today.

14 Forcing through regulations of this 

15 magnitude and such a short time frame will limit 

16 the ability of states and stakeholders to 

17 thoughtfully prepare for the drastic changes that 

18 this rule will cause.

19 If this Administration is comfortable 

20 spending more than five years evaluating the 

21 Keystone XL Pipeline, it should feel comfortable 

22 taking its time to craft a thoughtful rule that 

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1 will fully evaluate the consequences of its 

2 proposed actions. 

3 At a time when electricity consumption is 

4 projected to grow it is important that government 

5 regulations and policies avoid electricity supply 

6 disruptions or unnecessary price increases. As 

7 EPA considers how to move forward, we urge the 

8 agency to keep electricity consumers in mind and 

9 not promulgate rules that will adversely affect 

10 businesses and families.

11 As a nation, we should strive to have 

12 more of all forms of energy and not simply pick 

13 one energy resource against another. We hope 

14 that EPA will consider the potential economic 

15 impacts on consumers across the nation of these 

16 regulations as it takes the next steps in 

17 development. Thank you for the opportunity to 

18 testify here today.

19 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much.

20 We’re going to take a short five minute

21 break before we continue with the speakers. Just 

22 in way of preparing, the next two speakers will 

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1 be Akshai Singh and Bruce Brucart, and we’ll be 

2 in recess

3 [Recess from 2:45 to 2:50 p.m.]

4 MR. WAYLAND: Excuse me. We need to call 

5 the room to order, please. I’m sorry, if you’re 

6 having conversations, could you take them out 

7 into the hall because we need to reconvene the 

8 hearing. We’re starting to get a little bit 

9 behind schedule this afternoon.

10 At this time we’d like to reconvene the 

11 hearing and we will call Akshai Singh and Bruce 

12 Burcat to the stand. Thank you. And I’m sorry 

13 if I mispronounced your name.

14 MR. SINGH: That is actually the best 

15 pronunciation that’s been in a public hearing 

16 thus far.

17 MR. WAYLAND: Well, thanks.

18 MR. SINGH: Hello. My name is Akshai 

19 Singh. That’s A-k-s-h-a-i, last name is Singh, 

20 S-i-n-g-h. I’m a resident of Cleveland Heights, 

21 Ohio, at 255 Euclid Heights Boulevard. I am a 

22 master’s candidate in economics at Cleveland 

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1 State University, a soccer coach in Cleveland’s 

2 Village Neighborhood and work with Faith 

3 Communities in Ohio on mitigating the stresses of 

4 climate change, and that’s in terms of dealing 

5 with increasingly extreme weather as well as our 

6 organization, Ohio Interfaith Power and Light, 

7 helps congregations save money by cutting their 

8 dependence on fossil fuels through energy audits 

9 and retrofits, you know, and also to help them 

10 reduce their greenhouse gas footprint.

11 I wish to speak in favor of the proposed 

12 standards today. As one of the two largest 

13 emitters on the globe, the United States has a 

14 high responsibility to drastically draw down its 

15 carbon intensity with regards to any future 

16 economic development. 

17 The EPA’s carbon senders for large 

18 emitters are a momentous first step by the 

19 federal government to limit greenhouse gas 

20 pollution. Already we’ve seen that our efforts 

21 to limit greenhouse gas emissions has led to the 

22 Chinese government making announcements that they 

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1 are willing to draw down their carbon intensity 

2 for future development as well. 

3 Yet the proposed standards leave us 

4 unprepared to accept this full responsibility to 

5 act on climate change. This implies that we have 

6 not yet accepted the scientific consensus 

7 regarding humanities impact on greenhouse gas --

8 on earth’s greenhouse gas effect, nor the full 

9 implications that it will have on civilization 

10 going forward.

11 Without including limits on methane 

12 emissions, the EPA will be leaving out massively 

13 important source of greenhouse gas emissions. 

14 Other witnesses have testified to the amount 

15 of -- methane is a severely impact on greenhouse 

16 gas versus carbon dioxide on the 20-year term.

17 Furthermore, the EPA’s clean power plan 

18 doesn’t address small emitting plants, and leaves 

19 carbon emissions free for plants burning natural 

20 gas at smaller sizes. 

21 This is given the evidence of life cycle 

22 greenhouse gas assessments on natural gas 

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1 extraction, transportation and finally their use, 

2 and we see that they yield the same carbon 

3 footprint as coal burning power plants.

4 The United States must not exacerbate 

5 climate change through its expert terminals 

6 either. There is not point cutting our coal 

7 burning in the United States only for us to send 

8 coal to be burned overseas to be put into the 

9 global atmosphere, which we happen to share.

10 Yet corporate fossil fuel companies are a 

11 national polluter and they pay to speak for them. 

12 Indeed, these are the most profitable industries 

13 in this country, who also receive billions of 

14 dollars in direct subsidies from the American 

15 taxpayers, would have us believe that America 

16 would meet its demise without them. There is 

17 nothing further from the truth.

18 Through aggressive employment of demand 

19 response, energy efficiency and renewable energy, 

20 the United States can drastically draw down its 

21 greenhouse gas footprint and meet our energy

22 needs affordably and with widespread health and 

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1 economic benefits which other witnesses have, 

2 again, testified to.

3 Furthermore, we can better prepare 

4 ourselves for the conditions of an increasingly 

5 volatile climate and extreme weather. It is 

6 through our ingenuity, our toughness and our 

7 creativity that we will persevere through 

8 increasingly terrible droughts that we see in 

9 southwest United States, or through more 

10 widespread floods and tornados in the Midwest.

11 I grew up on the state of Iowa, where we 

12 have seen 500-year floods in the last 30 years. 

13 So, you know, by that math, we’d have to redefine 

14 those to be 20-year floods, and you know, seeing 

15 that Hurricane Sandy type hurricanes is in the 

16 business as usual context, increase to once every 

17 ten years, is not something that we can afford on 

18 our eastern or our gulf seaboards.

19 But it will not be through the reliance 

20 on increasingly expensive fuels, so we will 

21 persevere, already in communities where it is 

22 feeling the cost of fossil fuels through local 

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1 air and water pollution. In Cleveland where I 

2 coach, nearly one in four children on a 

3 predominantly black eastside suffers from asthma, 

4 and that is true for the girls that I coach on my 

5 team as well as the demographic overall.

6 We are already seeing massive 

7 environmental justice issues today and climate 

8 change will only deepen. The NAACP’s Cold 

9 Blooded Report reports that Cleveland’s Lake 

10 Shore plant is the sixth worse polluting and 

11 environmental offender in the nation. And it’s 

12 one that needs to be closed, and based on not 

13 just the mercury rules, but also the carbon 

14 rules.

15 I have more written in my testimony. I 

16 hope you’ll consider it and I assume my time’s 

17 up. Thank you. 

18 MR. WAYLAND: Sure, thank you. I had one 

19 question for you. We’ve heard it from several 

20 speakers today, the need for us to do something 

21 with respect to methane emissions. Is that 

22 focused on fracking and oiling gas or is it 

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1 methane emissions in general? I’m just not clear 

2 where the focus is targeted there on methane, 

3 whether it’s all methane emissions or whether 

4 it’s the methane associated with the gas that --

5 MR. SINGH: I think methane leakages, 

6 especially at the point of extraction is a major 

7 concern that I’m hearing repeated, and it’s the 

8 one that I am most familiar with.

9 MR. WAYLAND: Yeah, that’s what I thought 

10 it was, I just wanted to clarify. 

11 MR. SINGH: Thank you. 

12 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you.

13 MR. BURCAT: Good afternoon. I am Bruce 

14 Burcat, it’s spelled B-u-r-c-a-t. And I am the 

15 Executive Director of the Mid-Atlantic Renewable 

16 Energy Coalition, which we call MAREC. MAREC is 

17 a non-profit organization formed to advance 

18 renewable energy opportunities within the 

19 footprint of PJM, the Regional Transmission 

20 Organization. 

21 MAREC’s membership consists of leading 

22 wind developers, wind turbine manufacturers, 

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1 service companies and non-profit organizations, 

2 and a transmission company. MAREC’s members have 

3 developed, owned and operated thousands of 

4 megawatts of renewable energy serving the PJM 

5 territory, including here in Pennsylvania and 

6 neighboring West Virginia and Ohio.

7 I commend the EPA for issuing the draft 

8 Clean Power Plan. Here in the Mid Atlantic we 

9 have seen the devastation caused by Super Storm 

10 Sandy, and recognize the critical potence of 

11 taking action now to curb carbon emissions. The 

12 alternative, wowing the status quo, is not an 

13 option. 

14 The wind industry is urged to work with 

15 the states and the EPA by developing and 

16 providing zero emitting renewable energy to help 

17 meet the state carbon reducing targets that will 

18 need to be developed to comply with the draft 

19 plan.

20 Allowing renewable energy is a compliance 

21 option to meet these targets, and the endorsement 

22 of programs such as renewable portfolio standards 

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1 are especially important components of this well 

2 designed strategy to address global warming.

3 I support the draft plan and believe that 

4 it is a strong step on the right direction. 

5 Nevertheless, the final rule should be developed 

6 further by requiring greater emission reductions 

7 that are implemented faster than what is proposed 

8 in the draft rule. Zero emitting renewable 

9 energy can be relied upon to provide greater 

10 reductions in a timely and affordable way. 

11 That’s critical.

12 In fact, the American Wind Energy 

13 Associations calculated that using renewable 

14 energy, not just wind energy, as a compliance 

15 option to meet the targets of the plan would save 

16 consumers billions of dollars per year.

17 According to U.S. Department of Energy, 

18 the cost of wind has fallen 43 percent in the 

19 last four years. Wind energy is being added 

20 reliably and affordably to the grid to the point 

21 that on an annual average basis it provides more 

22 than 25 percent of electricity in two states, 12 

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1 percent or more in nine states, and five percent 

2 or more in 17 states. 

3 In this region, PJM, the great operator, 

4 completed a comprehensive study earlier this year 

5 that concluded that the PBJ could reliably handle 

6 renewable energy penetration levels up to 30 

7 percent -- we’re talking about now we have about 

8 two or three percent in this region -- with the 

9 need for some additional reserve and transmission 

10 build out.

11 The study’s 30 percent wind energy 

12 penetration scenario showed that carbon emissions 

13 would be reduced by 140 to 180 million tons on an 

14 annual basis from PJM electricity generation 

15 alone at that 30 percent wind penetration level.

16 The study also concluded that under its 

17 20 and 30 percent wind energy penetration level 

18 scenarios, there would be massive reductions in 

19 wholesale prices, as much as 21 billion annually 

20 in one scenario.

21 These study results are consistent with a 

22 number of other studies which demonstrate that 

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1 the price suppression effects of wind energy, 

2 when it competes with other generating resources 

3 in the wholesale electricity market, such as the 

4 PJM market, basically wind, when it competes, is 

5 usually one of the lower cost forms of energy at 

6 that time, and it will box out other types of 

7 energy that are more expensive, thus reducing 

8 what we call the clearing price of energy, and 

9 lowering the cost, ultimately, to consumers.

10 The American Wind Energy Association 

11 reports that here in Pennsylvania, where there is 

12 instilled recapacity of 1,340 megawatts, the 

13 commonwealth will avoid nearly two million metric 

14 tons of carbon emissions a year, the equivalent 

15 of taking approximately 350,000 cars off the 

16 road.

17 Wind energy companies invested 

18 approximately 2.7 billion in capital for their 

19 projects in Pennsylvania alone. This investment 

20 as not only driven economic development, but 

21 landowners and county government see benefits in 

22 the millions of dollars paid to them for land 

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1 leases and tax payments. 

2 Pennsylvania is just one example where 

3 renewable energy can be developed to reduce 

4 carbon emissions in a reliable and affordable 

5 manner while at the same time being an engine for 

6 economic development. Thank you for the 

7 opportunity to speak today. I appreciate it.

8 MR. WAYLAND: Thanks to both of you. Our 

9 next two speakers this afternoon are Patricia 

10 Marida and James VanNostrand. 

11 MS. MARIDA: Hello. My name is Patricia 

12 Marida, it’s M-a-r-i-d-a. And I’m from Columbus, 

13 Ohio, and I’m speaking today as a member of the 

14 Core Organizing Team of the National Sierra 

15 Club’s Nuclear Free Campaign.

16 EPA’s proposed rule for reducing carbon 

17 dioxide emissions from existing electrical 

18 generating units is an important and historic 

19 step toward addressing climate change. However, 

20 EPA’s support of nuclear power and under playing 

21 of the importance of renewables and efficiency is 

22 of serious concern.

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1 The EPA Clean Power Plan Proposed Rule 

2 supports building new nuclear reactors and 

3 maintaining existing reactors as an alternative 

4 to burning fossil fuels.

5 The proposed rule encourages states to 

6 prevent even the most uncompetitive nuclear 

7 reactors from closing.

8 The rule underestimates the advantage of 

9 renewable energy and energy efficiency as the 

10 best alternatives for reducing carbon emissions. 

11 The rule should acknowledge that renewables and 

12 efficiency can produce the power we need without 

13 the use of fossil fuels or nuclear power, and 

14 they can remove more carbon per dollar spent in a 

15 shorter time.

16 Numerous studies have shown that this 

17 transition needs only the political will to make 

18 it happen. New nuclear reactors cost billions of 

19 dollars and take many years to bring online. 

20 Renewable energy, and especially efficiency are 

21 much cheaper and their development is already 

22 underway.

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1 EPA incorrectly claims that nuclear power 

2 is reliable. This ignores the many times nuclear 

3 reactors have had to shut down for years due to 

4 warm water temperatures, flooding and extreme 

5 weather events, all of which will worsen as the 

6 climate warms.

7 Nuclear power is far from carbon free. 

8 Fossil fuels are used for uranium mining, 

9 milling, processing, conversion enrichment, 

10 transportation and construction of reactors. 

11 Huge amounts of energy will be needed to isolate 

12 nuclear waste for millennia, a task which science 

13 so far has not been able to address.

14 Large amounts of water are also used to 

15 operate and cool the reactors. This water use 

16 can compete with other water needs in an era of 

17 increasing freshwater scarcity. 

18 EPA seriously minimizes the problem of 

19 radioactive waste. In fact, EPA erroneously 

20 contends that radioactive waste avoids the 

21 problem of waste from coal fired generation. 

22 Waste from coal is a serious problem, but 

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1 radioactive waste is extremely dangerous and 

2 remains so for millions of years. 

3 EPA also ignores the routine radioactive 

4 releases at all reactors, and the several U.S. 

5 close calls to nuclear meltdown. 

6 The Sierra Club maintains that the first 

7 step toward dealing with nuclear waste and 

8 radioactive pollution is to stop generating it. 

9 The Proposed Clean Power Plan improperly calls 

10 for reductions of carbon dioxide from 2005 

11 levels. The problem is that carbon dioxide 

12 levels in 2005 were the highest ever. 

13 I fact, current levels are 15 percent 

14 less than 2005. The proposed rule should at 

15 least use current levels or more appropriately, 

16 1990 levels. 

17 The nuclear industry is looking to gain 

18 carbon credits. We say these carbon credits are 

19 undeserved. But in any case, the industry is 

20 asking for carbon credits for nuclear power. 

21 These very credits will allow the industry to 

22 burn more coal.

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1 How does the EPA propose that we obtain 

2 our national energy supply if we cut carbon but 

3 do not move as quickly as possible to 

4 sustainable, renewable replacement sources such 

5 as wind, solar, geothermal and efficiency.

6 So we hope that EPA will not, by default, 

7 look at nuclear power or fracking as the mainstay 

8 of America’s energy future.

9 Currently, EPA has out an advance notice 

10 for comments on environmental radiation 

11 protection standards for nuclear power 

12 operations. Unless the current radiation 

13 protection standards are strengthened, EPA will 

14 continue to have lower standards for protection 

15 from radioactivity than it has standards for 

16 protection from other pollutants.

17 EPA’s acceptable cancer risk is one in a 

18 million to one in ten thousand for other 

19 pollutants. The allowable limit for radioactive 

20 exposure is 25 milligrams per year. If a 

21 person’s life span is 70 years, that risk 

22 translates to one cancer per 500 persons, which 

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1 is as many as 2000 times more allowable -- as 

2 many as 2000 more allowable cancers.

3 So we don’t want the EPA to lower those, 

4 certainly, they should raise those standards, and 

5 we strongly approve of reducing carbon dioxide, 

6 but we think inclusion of reactors as a solution 

7 is a mistake. So thank you very much for your 

8 time.

9 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much. Any 

10 questions? Okay. 

11 MR. VANNOSTRAND: Good afternoon. I’m 

12 James VanNostrand, V-a-n, capital 

13 N-o-s-t-r-a-n-d. I’m an associate professor at 

14 the West Virginia University College of Law and 

15 Director of the Center for Energy and Sustainable 

16 development at West Virginia University.

17 We’ve been following this issue very 

18 closely for the last year or so. We had our 

19 conference, our annual energy conference in 

20 February, which actually focused on the 

21 anticipated 111(d) rules and the path forward for 

22 coal dependent states, recognizing that there are 

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1 some regions of the country that are going to be 

2 more adversely affected by these rules than 

3 others. 

4 We brought together academics, NGO’s, 

5 public officials to start the discussion. And 

6 the theme of the conference was actually being 

7 able to exercise the hope for flexibility that we 

8 would get under the EPA rules, under 111(d). And 

9 I think the conference well prepared the 

10 participants for the rule that came out last 

11 month.

12 Since then we’ve actually got funding 

13 from the Appalachian Stewardship Foundation. 

14 We’re putting together a White Paper for West 

15 Virginia, sort of a path forward, looking at the 

16 flexibility of the EPA proposed rules. 

17 It gives us in West Virginia providing a 

18 look forward. Looking at some of the options, it 

19 probably won’t necessarily be embraced in West 

20 Virginia, let’s put it that way. So we’ll be 

21 working on that for the next -- through next 

22 year.

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1 Some of the challenges of the Clean Power 

2 Plan, frankly, in many respects the Clean Air Act 

3 is a blunt instrument to regulate greenhouse gas 

4 emissions. It’s a major policy decision, and 

5 ideally, you would have a legislature addressing 

6 that issue. 

7 When you look back at the comprehensive 

8 energy and climate legislation that passed in 

9 June of 2009, you actually had a recognition that 

10 some parts of the country were going to be more 

11 adversely affected. You had workforce energy 

12 worker training programs. You had -- addressing 

13 the issues of workers displaced due to emissions 

14 regulations and grants for colleges and 

15 universities to retool and retrain folks. 

16 And that’s -- I think those are the sort 

17 of tools that you have in a comprehensive piece 

18 of legislation, that are not available when the 

19 agency acts. Nonetheless, it’s clear the EPA has 

20 the authority to regulate greenhouse gases and 

21 pollutants under the Clean Air Act and under the 

22 Massachusetts versus EPA case since the 

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1 endangerment filing in December, 2009. 

2 And despite the limitations that EPA has 

3 as compared to congressional action, it does have 

4 considerable flexibility, and we think the EPA 

5 has provided a lot of options for states to 

6 comply with the Clean Power Plan.

7 The path forward, West Virginia has a 20 

8 percent reduction target in contrast as compared 

9 to the nation’s 30 percent target. We think that 

10 presents numerous opportunities for West 

11 Virginians. 

12 How are we going to get there? Well, the 

13 first building block is an assumed six percent 

14 achievement and improved efficiency at existing 

15 electric generating units. So that’s something 

16 we -- we have a lot of coal plants in West 

17 Virginia, and that’s going to be the first step, 

18 I think, is the inside defense options of 

19 increasing efficiency of existing plants.

20 Second increase in the dispatch of 

21 existing natural gas, combined cycle combustion 

22 turbines, we don’t have any of those in West 

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1 Virginia, so we’re not going to get much play out 

2 of that second option.

3 Third option, renewable generation. The 

4 assumption in the EPA analysis is we’re going to 

5 go from about two percent to 16 percent between 

6 now and 2030. That’s going to be ambitious for 

7 us. Our current state alternative renewable 

8 energy portfolio standard really does not provide 

9 much incentive for stimulating production of 

10 renewables. But there is a lot of potential in 

11 West Virginia. 

12 Our study, in particular, I think, is 

13 going to look at the possibility of coal firing 

14 biomass with coal as one means of reducing the 

15 carbon footprint of existing power plants.

16 The final building block is the most 

17 important, we think, for going forward in West 

18 Virginia, and that’s energy efficiency, where the 

19 Clean Power Plan assumes that we’re going to have 

20 a 10 percent -- 10.1 percent accumulative energy 

21 savings from the 2012 baseline, basically ramping 

22 up to 1.5 percent annual savings beginning in 

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1 2025.

2 We think that’s the lowest cost 

3 compliance option for West Virginia. It’s a 

4 relatively untapped resource in West Virginia. 

5 ACEEE, the American Council for an Energy 

6 Efficient Economy, in their state rankings, puts 

7 West Virginia at Number 46. We have a lot of 

8 potential there in West Virginia. We have 

9 relatively low electricity rates, as measured, 

10 according to other states.

11 Our electricity bills, however, are 

12 pretty much right around the middle in terms of 

13 the 50 states because we use a lot more energy, 

14 which just demonstrates the fact that energy 

15 efficiency is an untapped resource. 

16 So those are the kind of things that are 

17 planned going forward, our policy paper going 

18 forward is going to be looking at, one of the 

19 options for West Virginia to comply with this 

20 rule in the least cost possible, looking 

21 primarily at energy efficiency, and some 

22 renewables. And we’ll be filing comments --

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1 formal comments to the EPA, but we really 

2 appreciate the opportunity, we appreciate the EPA 

3 coming to Pittsburgh and the opportunity for me 

4 to provide these comments. Thank you. 

5 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much. 

6 Okay, our next two speakers this 

7 afternoon will be Rick Claypool and Joy Bergey. 

8 Is James still in the room or did he slip 

9 out? I was wondering if he had -- see if he has 

10 something that he could leave with us. 

11 Mr. VanNostrand, did you have something 

12 you wanted to leave with us?

13 MR. VANNOSTRAND: We’re going to file 

14 formal comments.

15 MR. WAYLAND: You’re going to file formal 

16 comments, okay. Thank you very much. Sorry 

17 about that.

18 MR. CLAYPOOL: It’s all right. Good 

19 afternoon. My name is Rick Claypool and I’m here 

20 not just for myself but also on behalf of Public 

21 Citizen, a 300,000 strong non-profit organization 

22 dedicated to fighting for the public interest and 

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1 standing up to corporate power to testify in 

2 support of the EPA’s proposed to limit pollution 

3 from power plants.

4 Now, I have lived in and around 

5 Pittsburgh almost my entire life. I grew up in 

6 Leechburg, a steel mill town in the Allegheny 

7 Valley about 30 miles from here. My father is a 

8 steel worker. Both my grandfathers are steel 

9 workers. My great-grandfather died in the mill 

10 in the 1920's when a piece of metal came crashing 

11 down on him.

12 So I know what it means to live in a 

13 community that relies on a big industry for work, 

14 and I know about the health sacrifices families 

15 make as they try to make ends meet.

16 But also, I know that it is in all of our 

17 interests, young and old, which implore to move 

18 beyond fossil fuels in order to improve air 

19 quality and avert catastrophic climate change.

20 Now, ultimately, the science demands that 

21 we shift power production entirely to renewables 

22 like wind and solar. In that respect, the EPA’s 

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1 proposal is not nearly aggressive enough, but it 

2 is a good first step.

3 Because of coal fired power plants, 

4 Pittsburgh and the surrounding area has some of 

5 the worst air in the country. The sixth worst 

6 last year according to the American Lung 

7 Association’s Annual Air Quality Report.

8 As Mayor Bill Peduto and Governor Tom 

9 Corbett work to attract new investments in our 

10 city and state, such poor air quality will remain 

11 an albatross around our collective necks, 

12 stifling growth as American -- as air in 

13 American’s most livable city becomes less 

14 breathable.

15 For myself, I can say the more I learn 

16 about our low air quality, the more I consider 

17 relocating somewhere with cleaner air. I had 

18 respiratory problems growing up. I have a one 

19 year old son. If there is anything I can do to 

20 help him avoid the shortness of breath I suffered 

21 while growing up in the shadow of a century old 

22 steel mill, I’ll do it.

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1 But, of course, having the flexibility 

2 and the means to relocate where the air is 

3 cleaner is a privilege that very few of our 

4 neighbors enjoy. And poor air quality is 

5 increasingly a burden most severely suffered by 

6 the poor, especially low income children. 

7 There’s nothing mysterious about this air quality 

8 inequality. Housing is expensive. Housing your 

9 industrial sites less so.

10 Claims that coal is cheap, ignore its 

11 cost in terms of impact to health, the 

12 environment and its carbon output. Account for 

13 those costs, which today are primarily borne by 

14 the public, and the cost of electricity 

15 generation from coal rises 170 percent.

16 It’s the fact that the health effects of 

17 air pollution are suffered by the poor more than 

18 anyone else that makes the lie that these EPA 

19 rules will harm consumer’s pocketbooks so utterly 

20 disingenuous. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a 

21 business organization devoted to demanding and 

22 expanding corporate profits is among the most 

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1 vocal voices making this false claim.

2 The U.S. Chamber of Commerce does not 

3 care about consumers, and it certainly does not 

4 care about low income consumers.

5 The EPA, to its credit, has proposed its 

6 greenhouse gas rule in a way that enables states 

7 to keep prices affordable, and even result in 

8 lower energy prices because of the significant 

9 flexibility states have to implement the rule.

10 Pennsylvania cities could and should 

11 follow the example of Austin, Texas, which signed 

12 a 20-year agreement with a solar power company to 

13 supply electricity to the city at a rate less 

14 than the city’s prevailing rate. In other words, 

15 electricity rates will go down under the solar 

16 deal.

17 A recent PJM study supports this 

18 conclusion. Increasing renewable energy 

19 generation would reduce wholesale energy prices 

20 to consumers between 4.2 and 21.5 percent.

21 Another option that states have to reduce 

22 greenhouse gases is energy efficiency. Using 

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1 power more efficiently means using less power 

2 overall, translating into fewer fossil fuels 

3 burned at a lower utility bills. As an added 

4 bonus, putting people to work improving 

5 efficiency boosts economy and creates jobs.

6 Not only do the facts support the need to 

7 limit pollution from coal fired power plants, 

8 they demand it. The EPA’s proposed rule is good 

9 for consumers, good for the economy, and good for 

10 the country.

11 Polluting industries such as those that 

12 have set themselves against the EPA’s modest 

13 standards will say anything if they think it will 

14 help them scare the public and convince 

15 regulators to back down. Their financial 

16 interests in continuing to pollute as much as 

17 they want is no excuse for sacrificing the public 

18 interest in addressing climate change and 

19 ensuring clean air. 

20 Do not back down, double down, strengthen 

21 the rules so limits are placed on all fossil 

22 fuels, including fracked natural gas. Take this 

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1 opportunity to help us kick the fossil fuel habit 

2 and transition to a clean air economy. Thank 

3 you. 

4 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much. 

5 MS. BERGEY: Hello, EPA. Welcome to 

6 Pennsylvania, thanks for coming.

7 MR. WAYLAND: Thanks for being here.

8 MS. BERGEY: My name is Joy Bergey, but 

9 I’m reading the testimony of Reverend Linda Nunen 

10 (phonetic). She’s the pastor of my church. She 

11 couldn’t come here today because she’s in 

12 Philadelphia doing her job, but I traveled to 

13 Pittsburgh. So I’ll read her testimony. And I’m 

14 a member of the church. So this is for Reverend 

15 Linda Nunen, who is senior pastor at Chestnut 

16 Hill United Church.

17 “Our church has been working to address 

18 environmental injustice for over 20 years. We 

19 are extremely concerned about what climate change 

20 is already doing to God’s earth and God’s 

21 people.” 

22 Quoting Linda here, “As a mother of two 

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1 teenage girls, one who suffers from asthma, the 

2 distress I feel for the future due to climate 

3 disruptions is highly personal.”

4 “Chestnut Hill United Church fully 

5 supports the EPA proposal of a strong standard to 

6 limit carbon pollution from existing power 

7 plants. It’s past time for these power plants to 

8 control the pollution they belch into the 

9 environment.”

10 “We recognize that climate change will 

11 hurt first and worst those least able to get out 

12 of its way. The poor, the sick, the young, the 

13 old. And Christians are called to give special 

14 protections to these constituencies.”

15 “We support this proposed rule as we 

16 consider all those at risk here in Pittsburgh, 

17 and in Philadelphia, where our church and family 

18 are located, and across the country, and around 

19 the world, those who deserve a cleaner, safer 

20 future.”

21 “Chestnut Hill Church urges you to 

22 implement the standard quickly without any 

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1 weakening. But equally, we urge the federal 

2 government to support a just transition to a 

3 clean economy with retraining offered to those 

4 who may lose their jobs as a result of this 

5 rule.”

6 “With appropriate supports, today’s coal 

7 miners can become tomorrow’s wind farm operators, 

8 and energy auditors. These are safer jobs that 

9 pay just as well or better.”

10 “The Bible, Proverbs and the Old 

11 Testament tells us that without vision that 

12 people will perish. The wise ones all those 

13 thousands of years ago knew this truth.”

14 “Our congregation applauds the EPA for 

15 their vision of an economy that grows and 

16 prospers while weaning itself of the dirtiest 

17 fossil fuels that kill and disable too many of 

18 us. This is, indeed, a vision of hope and 

19 justice. Thank you, EPA.”

20 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you both. Okay, our 

21 next two speakers this afternoon will be Sophie 

22 Grueterich and Jackson Morris. 

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1 Jackson Morris. Is Jackson Morris in the 

2 room? Okay, if not, Susan Edwards. And we’ll 

3 hold Jackson’s spot for him. Okay, if he comes 

4 in just let me know and we’ll work him in. 

5 MS. GRUETERICH: Good afternoon. My name 

6 Sophie Grueterich, that’s S-o-p-h-i-e, and 

7 Gruetrich, G-r-u-e-t-e-r-i-c-h. 

8 As a Pennsylvania resident, Environment 

9 Field Organizer and Villanova student, I am here 

10 to show my support today for the strong and 

11 necessary steps the EPA and the Administration 

12 are so valiantly trying to take against carbon 

13 pollution from coal fired power plants. 

14 Climate change has put my hometown in 

15 coastal Connecticut at risk. The increase in 

16 extreme weather events spurred by the 

17 unpredictable climate has initiated flood after 

18 flood, leaving in its wake thousands of dollars 

19 in repairs, and even forcing many out of their 

20 homes.

21 Climate change is putting not only 

22 countless shore communities at risk, but also 

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1 inland towns and cities where unprecedented 

2 precipitation will undoubtedly cause building and 

3 infrastructure problems.

4 I could speak for hours about 

5 Super Storm Sandy and the effects it had on shore 

6 front communities, but I think we’ve all heard 

7 the spiel more than enough times. We’ve heard 

8 about the American Lung Association studies that 

9 show about half of all Americans are breathing 

10 unsafe air, and how this is causing hundreds of 

11 thousands of additional asthma attacks and 

12 thousands of additional deaths.

13 We’ve heard the numbers associated with 

14 coal fired power plants and their carbon 

15 emissions. I can go on but I don’t need to 

16 because the evidence is available. It’s right in 

17 front of us, but so many refuse to see it. 

18 How can you argue with scientific study 

19 after study that proves not only that climate 

20 change is real but also anthropogenic. Why is it 

21 so hard for some of us to look at these facts and 

22 accept them for just that. 

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1 Our old culture of innovation, of change, 

2 of inspiration, how can a nation that put the 

3 first man on the moon not strive to be the leader 

4 in energy efficiency and renewables?

5 If you ask me, so what if global warming 

6 keeps happening? What does that look like? I 

7 probably couldn’t give you an exact answer, 

8 because I’m not a climate change researcher, and 

9 I also don’t like to deal in hypotheticals, 

10 especially not ones I don’t want to see happen. 

11 But what I do know is that what it looks like is 

12 not pretty.

13 Humans will adapt for a while, we always 

14 do, that’s true. But if we don’t act now, 

15 humanity is going to struggle through that

16 adaptation more than we ever have in the past. 

17 People talk about jobs being lost, or 

18 shifting sectors, or our economy taking a hit. 

19 If you think that’s a problem now, today, when 

20 the physical effects of climate change still seem 

21 like a distant reality, take a moment to imagine 

22 what job loss and economic impact will look like 

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1 when we have to make all of our adaptations in 

2 one fell swoop.

3 If we wanted to stop climate change, we 

4 would have had to have taken this step at least 

5 30 years ago. But now we have to accept the fact 

6 that changes are going to happen because of the 

7 steps that we have failed to take, and we have to 

8 do everything we can to stop that change from 

9 multiplying tenfold.

10 The Clean Power Plan is the biggest piece 

11 of clean air policy that any federal agency or 

12 administration has attempted to implement since 

13 the last amendments to the Clean Air Act in 1990. 

14 So much has changed since then.

15 We have witnessed the hottest year on 

16 record, 2012. The average rate of ice loss from 

17 the Antarctica Ice Sheet has increased 

18 dramatically. Carbon dioxide, methane and 

19 nitrous oxide concentrations have hit 

20 unprecedented levels. All while carbon dioxide 

21 emissions from fossil fuel combustion have 

22 increased by 54 percent.

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1 You can chalk these up to coincidence if 

2 you’d like. But I would really rather that our 

3 decision makers don’t leave the health of future 

4 generations up to chance. Thank you. 

5 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much. 

6 MS. EDWARDS: Hi. My name is Susan 

7 Edwards, E-d-w-a-r-d-s. I come from the eastern 

8 side of the state near Philadelphia. I see our 

9 society and economy as having reached a 

10 crossroads. We can ignore the warnings of the 

11 overwhelming majority of scientists and choose 

12 the path of business as usual, burning fossil 

13 fuels to run our vehicles, heat and cook our 

14 buildings, manufacture products and create 

15 electricity. 

16 I believe this path leads to pollution, 

17 illness and a dangerous alteration of the climate 

18 of the entire planet. We’ve been hearing this 

19 all day long, I don’t need to specify. Or we can 

20 take charge of our situation and for the first 

21 time in human history, consciously design 

22 together a rational energy future.

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1 I believe the first path represents 

2 putting our heads in the sand and hoping against 

3 hope that the scientists are wrong. While the 

4 second path means keeping our eyes wide open and 

5 using our best minds to plan energy production 

6 and distribution, not allowing the profit 

7 calculations of a few owners of coal and oil 

8 reserves to drag all of us to the brink of 

9 destruction and beyond.

10 I applaud the EPA’s proposal to reduce 

11 carbon emissions from power plants. I am retired 

12 now and I’m devoting many hours each week to 

13 volunteering with environmental groups, in 

14 particular, the Sierra Club, because I see the 

15 issue of human caused planetary warming and the 

16 resulting chaotic effects on our climate as the 

17 most crucial issue of our times.

18 I believe we need to take strong action. 

19 One, to increase the efficiency of all our forms 

20 of energy use, and two, to reduce fossil fuel 

21 consumption and replace it with clean sustainable 

22 energy sources.

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1 I think the Clean Power Plan is a step in 

2 the right direction. There is a caveat. I do 

3 hope the EPA will reconsider including nuclear 

4 energy and natural gas as alternatives to be 

5 encouraged. The problems of nuclear waste 

6 storage, the pollution from uranium mining and 

7 the immense water usage of nuclear plants are all 

8 reasons to exclude it and focus on developing 

9 energy efficiency measures on expanding wind, 

10 solar and geothermal electricity generation and 

11 storage.

12 And while natural gas may burn cleaner 

13 than other fossil fuels, the problem with methane 

14 leakage during fracking as well as pollution of 

15 air and water make it highly problematic. We 

16 should be focusing investment dollars on long 

17 term sustainability, that is, efficiency first, 

18 then solar, wind and geothermal power.

19 The benefits of reducing carbon emissions 

20 will not only be to ameliorate climate change but 

21 also to improve public health as we clean up our 

22 air and water. 

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1 I live close to the city of Philadelphia. 

2 Philadelphia’s African/American children are 

3 afflicted with asthma at twice the national rate. 

4 Nearly one in four and in some areas one in three 

5 African/American children in Philadelphia suffer 

6 from asthma, which has been linked to ozone and 

7 rising temperatures. These children deserve an 

8 environment in which they won’t have to miss 

9 school days and play outside with being sickened.

10 One final but most important note, some 

11 try to pit environmental protection as jobs 

12 versus the environment. I think it can be jobs 

13 for the environment. I fully understand, I 

14 think, the anxiety associated with the transition 

15 to a clean energy future. People will have to 

16 leave behind the jobs associated with our current 

17 energy infrastructure. They will be looking for 

18 help getting retrained, if need be, and finding 

19 work in the many avenues that will open up from 

20 retrofitting buildings to manufacturing and 

21 installing wind turbines and solar panels, as 

22 well as many other jobs that will be needed.

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1 I say I think I understand, because my 

2 husband is a retired United Auto Workers of 

3 America member and former local union officer, 

4 and I was at one time a shop steward. 

5 I was laid off in the 1982 economic 

6 downturn and eventually found other work. My 

7 husband, a highly skilled machinist, who could 

8 trim metal parts to within a few ten-thousandths 

9 of an inch, saw the machines on which he earned a 

10 livelihood sold to companies overseas. He had to 

11 switch to other work, a huge change in his life. 

12 So I appreciate the wrenching that will 

13 come with shifting from dirty to clean energy 

14 production, and leaving fossil fuels in the 

15 ground. I hope that under the Clean Power Plan 

16 states will emphasize increasing renewable energy 

17 sources and increasing energy efficiency, both of 

18 which create more than three times the number of 

19 jobs per dollar spent than any of the fossil 

20 fuels.

21 And also, salaries for clean jobs are 

22 nearly $8,000 higher than other wages. I have a 

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1 citation here for that.

2 I support a strong and just Clean Power 

3 Plan, so I commit to using my energies to 

4 advocate as strongly as I know how for a just 

5 transition to good paying union level jobs in the 

6 new energy economy, and disadvantaged communities 

7 must receive fair access to clean energy related 

8 economic opportunities, so they must be at the 

9 table as plans are made. Thank you for 

10 listening.

11 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you. I had one 

12 question. The nuclear issue has come up several 

13 times this morning and this afternoon. Is your 

14 point to not include nuclear power, or just not 

15 include credits for building new nuclear plants, 

16 or is it nuclear power in general?

17 MS. EDWARDS: Nuclear power in general as 

18 far as I’m concerned.

19 MR. WAYLAND: Okay, thank you.

20 Okay, for the record I was just informed 

21 Jackson Morris already spoke this morning, so his 

22 testimony is already on the record, so we will 

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1 skip over that. Do we have more?

2 Okay, the next two speakers will be Paul 

3 Lubold and Zack Gordon. And then I understand 

4 we’re going to take another little break to wait 

5 for some more speakers to arrive.

6 MR. GORDON: Hi, my name is Zachary 

7 Gordon, G-o-r-d-o-n. I recently graduated from 

8 the University of Pittsburgh Law School, and 

9 yesterday and the day before I just sat for the 

10 Bar exam. I’m here after these trying times in 

11 my life because this issue is important. 

12 I’m going to take a brief digression and 

13 tell you I commute by bus every day. For just 

14 about the past three years going to school, I 

15 take the bus. If it’s raining I get wet. If 

16 it’s hot out, I get hot. If it’s cold, I get 

17 cold.

18 Last year was unbearable. We had the 

19 polar vortex and I worked or went to school every 

20 day of the week. So when it was freezing out, 

21 they don’t cancel law school classes. They don’t 

22 take a day off at the law firm. I was there 

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1 waiting for the bus at seven in the morning some 

2 days in the freezing cold. 

3 Now, I know that this small impact that 

4 these coal regulations might have overall on 

5 climate change seem minor, but if there is 

6 anything we can do to stop the polar vortexes and 

7 to keep me, a recent graduate, from having to 

8 wait at the bus stop in the freezing cold, we 

9 should do it. 

10 And I know, like many people here, you 

11 know, I’m not really -- there’s some people here 

12 who are environmentalist. I’m just a law 

13 student. I just graduated. Thankfully, I have a 

14 job. I’m going to be doing family law and media 

15 law. 

16 The environment, you know, this is not a 

17 huge issue for me. But I’m here because I see 

18 study after study. You just hear everything 

19 people are saying, you know. It’s just 

20 universally accepted by science, we need to do 

21 something. And I just want to be here today 

22 thank you, that’s the EPA, for standing up and 

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1 doing something. I appreciate it, but I 

2 challenge you to do more. I know you can. I 

3 want you to do more and I’ll have your back to do 

4 more. I have your back today. Thank you for 

5 having our backs, and hopefully keeping me warmer 

6 at the bus stop. Thank you very much. 

7 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much and 

8 good luck with the Bar.

9 MR. GORDON: Thank you.

10 MR. LUBOLD: Good afternoon. I am Paul 

11 Lubold, that is L-u-b-o-l-d. I live in 

12 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Welcome to Pittsburgh.

13 I am a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church 

14 in America and I am also serving on the staff of 

15 our church’s state public policy office. I join 

16 with other Lutherans who are calling for clean 

17 air for all of God’s children. That’s a campaign 

18 we are in the midst of. 

19 We fully support the EPA’s Clean Power 

20 Plan. The Plan to limit carbon dioxide pollution 

21 from existing power plants. The ELCA is a 

22 denomination of about four million members. Our 

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1 presiding Bishop, the Reverend Elizabeth Eaton, 

2 along with the presiding bishop of the Episcopal 

3 Church, USA, that’s the Reverend Katharine 

4 Jefferts Sdhori, issued a joint statement last 

5 month immediately following the EPA’s proposal.

6 Together these two church leaders of 

7 national church bodies fully support the proposed 

8 limit on carbon emissions, and they recognize it 

9 as but a step in the right direction.

10 I share their concern about the impacts 

11 of global climate change most especially as it 

12 seems to be taking its largest told on quote, 

13 “the health of young children and their families 

14 disproportionately affecting the poorest among 

15 us.” 

16 And again I quote from the Bishop’s 

17 statement, “Multi-year droughts, sea level rise, 

18 extreme weather events” -- like you just 

19 described -- “increased flooding dramatically 

20 affect communities internationally from the north 

21 slopes of Alaska to Midwestern farming families, 

22 to our brothers and sisters in the Philippines.” 

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1 The bishop is right. “We recognize with concern 

2 that climate change, particularly harms low 

3 income communities.” 

4 I also want to speak in support of a 

5 Clean Power Plan from a more personal 

6 perspective. As a person of faith, a leader in 

7 the faith community, I believe that God created 

8 the earth, the sky and the seas. And at the time 

9 of creation God declared it is good.

10 God then entrusted human beings to be 

11 caretakers, to be responsible for that good 

12 creation. But unfortunately, we’ve not always 

13 been so responsible. Rather than using natural 

14 resources like fossil fuels in a sustainable way, 

15 we’ve often squandered them in selfish profit 

16 driven causes.

17 While some continue to disagree with top 

18 scientists and world leaders, and fail to 

19 acknowledge the problems associated with climate 

20 change and global warming, there is generally 

21 accepted evidence suggesting that one of the 

22 primary causes is a result of the greenhouse 

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1 gases being produced by the burning of fossil 

2 fuels to generate electricity. 

3 These greenhouse gases released into the 

4 atmosphere up until recently with no limits are 

5 directly related to many other negative changes 

6 that are taking place. And while there are many 

7 causes of these greenhouse gases, by far one of 

8 the greatest causes is generating electricity.

9 If we, who were entrusted to be 

10 caretakers of creation, if we have an opportunity 

11 to make a change that would ensure and leaving an 

12 environment that’s healthier for those who come 

13 after us, we have a moral imperative to do it. 

14 Reducing carbon emissions from power 

15 plants is a way for us to be a little more 

16 responsible, to be better caretakers and to leave 

17 a healthier planet behind.

18 My second reason is a more personal 

19 reason. An increase of excessive high average 

20 temperatures is more than simply a matter of 

21 discomfort for me. I was diagnosed with multiple 

22 sclerosis almost 20 years ago. Thankfully, it’s 

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1 not yet been debilitating visibly, but my most 

2 common symptom is fatigue, which is brought on by 

3 increased core body temperature.

4 There are simple ways to remain cool, but 

5 increasing outdoor temperatures worries me. I 

6 recall hearing a presentation from the National 

7 Wildlife Federation from an executive that looked 

8 at average temperatures in southwestern 

9 Pennsylvania, and he noted that how our average 

10 temperatures have increased over the past 25 

11 years, and he suggested that if those trends 

12 continue, that in 25 years, our average 

13 temperature here would resemble that of Virginia, 

14 and continuing on 25 more years, it would be more 

15 like Alabama.

16 Now, this strange weather pattern of this 

17 past week in southwestern Pennsylvania at the end 

18 of July might give people cause to dismiss my 

19 concern, but the accumulated temperature data 

20 stands and it troubles me.

21 Most of us get uncomfortable in excess 

22 heat and humidity. But for some of us it means 

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1 compromised health. 

2 I’m hopeful that the ELCA is going to do 

3 its job and foster our being more responsible 

4 caretakers, and I hope that clean air for all of 

5 God’s children is going to be a reality and that 

6 God can once again look down and say it is good. 

7 Thank you. 

8 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you both very much. 

9 We’re going to take a short break. They didn’t 

10 tell me how long the break will be, so I wouldn’t 

11 stray off too far. But we’re going to take a 

12 brief break and then we’ll reconvene, let’s 

13 say -- have you got more speakers? 

14 FEMALE VOICE: I’ll bring more in.

15 MR. WAYLAND: So do you want us to take 

16 the break or no?

17 FEMALE VOICE: Yes.

18 MR. WAYLAND: We’re going to take a five 

19 minute break, and then when we come back we’ll 

20 have Theodore Robinson and Joanne Kilgour to 

21 speak, but we’ll take five minutes.

22 [Recess from 3:42 to 3:52 p.m.]

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1 MR. WAYLAND: Okay, we’re going to 

2 reconvene the hearing. I’d like to introduce the 

3 room to Christian Fellner. He’s here for the

4 nighttime session and for the hearing sessions 

5 tomorrow, but he arrived a little bit early, so 

6 he’s going to join us for the remainder of this 

7 session this afternoon.

8 First two speakers in this session will 

9 be Theodore Robinson and Joanne Kilgour.

10 MR. ROBINSON: Good afternoon, and thank 

11 you for this opportunity today to testify. My 

12 name is Theodore Robinson, R-o-b-i-n-s-o-n, and I 

13 am a staff attorney with Citizen Power, a 

14 non-profit public policy research education and 

15 advocacy organization based in Pittsburgh.

16 Since 1996 we have worked towards 

17 ensuring that low income consumers and 

18 environmental interests are represented in the 

19 operation of the electric generation industry.

20 Citizen Power supports both the purpose 

21 and the general methodology of the EPA’s proposed 

22 rule. It is imperative that our nation 

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1 effectively regulates greenhouse gases. The four 

2 building blocks approach under section 111(d) is 

3 a reasonable and flexible step towards this goal

4 I would like to emphasize, however, that 

5 we view this proposed rule as only part of the 

6 solution. Additional legislation is necessary in 

7 order to further reduce emissions.

8 Although we generally support the 

9 proposed rule, our recommended changes to 

10 specific aspects of the rule will be addressed in 

11 our written comments. I would like to highlight 

12 three of these comments today. 

13 First, we believe that greater reductions 

14 than those proposed by the EPA are possible 

15 through the application of the best system of 

16 emission reduction. 

17 For example, the use of the target of 

18 eight to ten percent heat rate improvements for 

19 the existing fleet is supported by the existing 

20 literature and the low cost per ton of carbon 

21 dioxide.

22 In addition, we believe that the EIA data 

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1 supports an energy efficiency ramp up level of .3 

2 percent instead of the proposed .2 percent. 

3 Second, the proposed inclusion of new and 

4 preserved nuclear capacity is a substitute for 

5 carbon intensive generating capacity does not 

6 adequately reflect the future life cycle 

7 greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear facilities.

8 While wind generation has a consistently 

9 small greenhouse gas profile, the impact of 

10 nuclear facilities is dependent upon the uranium 

11 mining technologies used, the quality of the 

12 uranium ore, the enrichment method and the carbon 

13 intensity of the electricity used for enrichment.

14 The future quality of uranium ore in 

15 particular may degrade as higher quality mines 

16 are depleted, resulting in a greater processing 

17 and a higher emissions in the future from nuclear 

18 generation.

19 Additionally, the cost of disposing of 

20 nuclear waste, as well as the cost associated 

21 with the potential of a nuclear accident needs to 

22 be taken into account when estimating the cost of 

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1 reducing carbon emissions through increasing 

2 nuclear capacity.

3 Third, the use of redispatching to 

4 substitute combined cycle natural gas for fossil 

5 fueled fired steam generation has impacts not 

6 addressed in the proposed rule. Specifically, 

7 the standard of performance must take into 

8 account the environmental impacts of non-air 

9 quality health and environmental impacts.

10 The impacts from fracking, which will be 

11 increased as a result of redispatching, such as 

12 impacts to water quality, should be addressed and 

13 quantified in the proposed rule. Thank you, 

14 again, for the opportunity to testify.

15 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much. Any 

16 questions? Okay.

17 MS. KILGOUR: Good afternoon, and thank 

18 you for the opportunity to speak today. My name 

19 is Joanne Kilgour, J-o-a-n-n-e, K-i-l-g-o-u-r.

20 And I am the Director of the Pennsylvania Chapter 

21 of the Sierra Club.

22 We have more than 24,500 members across 

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1 the Commonwealth and they are committed to 

2 outdoor recreation, protecting human health and 

3 the environment, and have long been leading 

4 climate advocates in their communities.

5 I currently live in Lancaster County, 

6 Pennsylvania, which despite the pastoral image of 

7 Amish farms and river hills that the name 

8 invokes, has some of the worst air quality in the 

9 nation. 

10 My community is at risk, as are 31 of the 

11 67 counties of the commonwealth, and will 

12 continue to be at risk for generations to come 

13 unless we act now, taking swift and bold steps to 

14 address harmful air pollution.

15 Across Pennsylvania alone we have nearly 

16 285,000 children living with pediatric asthma, 

17 each of whom faces greater threat of medical 

18 complication because of exposure to ozone and 

19 particle pollution.

20 The proposed Clean Power Plan provides an 

21 opportunity for us to improve public health such 

22 as these threats from childhood asthma, by 

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1 cleaning up the region’s air and helping to 

2 address climate disruption.

3 Through strong implementation of the 

4 Clean Power Plan we can achieve significant 

5 reductions in harmful air pollution, create new 

6 family sustaining jobs and realize the benefits 

7 of economic growth in the renewable energy 

8 industry.

9 We all want a bright, healthy future for 

10 our families, and making meaningful improvements 

11 to air quality by reducing harmful pollution is 

12 essential to making that hope a reality.

13 In Pennsylvania we have existing policies 

14 that will help us to meet nearly 60 percent of 

15 our required carbon pollution reductions. The 

16 commonwealth currently requires utilities to 

17 assist customers in saving electricity, and we 

18 have a law that requires eight percent of our 

19 energy to come from renewable sources by 2021. 

20 To work toward meeting a hundred percent 

21 of our reduction target, we can bring these 

22 existing policies in light with what leading 

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1 states are already achieving. We can double our 

2 annual savings from utility efficiency programs 

3 and increase the percentage of renewable energy 

4 required from eight percent to just 15 percent.

5 In addition to helping Pennsylvania meet 

6 our carbon pollution reduction targets, renewable 

7 energy and energy efficiency can help to support 

8 jobs and our local economies. Wind energy 

9 manufacturing, construction and operation now 

10 employ at least 75,000 Americans. and the great 

11 majority of the components are sourced 

12 domestically.

13 In 2013, the solar industry created 

14 24,000 new jobs in this country. States 

15 neighboring Pennsylvania, such as Ohio and 

16 Michigan, are seeing a resurgence of 

17 manufacturing jobs in the clean energy sector 

18 revitalizing the Rust Belt.

19 We want the same for Pennsylvania, and we 

20 can use the Clean Power Plan as an opportunity to 

21 bring these jobs to the Commonwealth.

22 We also recognize that this plan can and 

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1 must be stronger if we want to see our 

2 communities become healthier and more prosperous. 

3 Therefore, one key to the success of the Clean 

4 Power Plan is making sure that we take full 

5 advantage of renewable energy and energy 

6 efficiency to minimize our reliance on polluting 

7 fossil fuels of all kinds, including natural gas.

8 The renewable energy and energy 

9 efficiency sectors are essential to achieving 

10 climate success and economic prosperity, and we 

11 need to fully embrace these pathways to a 

12 healthier future rather than holding onto the 

13 dirty fossil fuels of our past. Thank you.

14 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much. Any 

15 questions? No? Okay, thank you.

16 Our next two speakers this afternoon will 

17 be Karen Melton and Kim Glas.

18 MS. GLAS: Good afternoon. I’m Kimberly 

19 Glas, G-l-a-s. I am the Executive Director of 

20 the Blue Green Alliance, and I thank you for the 

21 opportunity to testify about the proposed rule to 

22 limit carbon pollution from existing power 

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1 plants.

2 As you’ve seen throughout the day there 

3 are strong feelings on all sides of this issue. 

4 These voices can and must be heard as states 

5 develop to implement the final rule.

6 The Blue Green Alliance is a national 

7 partnership of the country’s largest labor unions 

8 and most influential environmental organizations. 

9 We represent 16 million members and supporters 

10 working to turn today’s environmental challenges 

11 into job creating and economic opportunities.

12 We support the EPA’s authority to limit 

13 carbon pollution from power plants. We are 

14 pleased that this rule permits each state to 

15 craft a compliance plan that is tailored to the 

16 specifics of its local and regional economy that 

17 will protect existing jobs while reducing 

18 emissions, and that can create opportunities to 

19 grow new jobs, encourage investment and jumpstart 

20 new technologies. This proposal can be a 

21 significant step forward if we all engage to 

22 develop and implement it.

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1 There are three points I’d like to 

2 emphasize. First, the proposed rule sets 

3 reasonable targets for reducing carbon pollution 

4 that the final rule should retain. 

5 Second, the proposal’s flexible 

6 compliance approach is essential to its success. 

7 And third, community and workforce 

8 stability and development should be integral 

9 elements of any carbon reduction strategy.

10 I will just say a few words on each 

11 point. First, the reduction targets are 

12 reasonable. In the aggregate, the proposal will 

13 help cut carbon pollution from power plants by 30 

14 percent from the 2005 levels. This is a 

15 significant step forward.

16 Second, the proposal offers maximum

17 flexibility for compliance. Each state can 

18 determine for itself which carbon reduction 

19 mechanisms make the most sense for its citizens, 

20 its workers and its economy.

21 For example, a state with multiple coal 

22 plants can encourage improvements in both supply

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1 and demand. Technological changes can increase 

2 the supply of power produced by each ton of coal. 

3 Boosting end use energy efficient tools will 

4 reduce demand for electricity during peak hours. 

5 A state whose power comes principally 

6 from gas plants may institute diversification in 

7 its centers. A state can also authorize carbon 

8 capture and storage mechanisms to reduce 

9 emissions from existing coal plants. This 

10 technology recently announced the Department of 

11 Energy is actually helping to fund construction 

12 of the largest post combustion carbon capture 

13 project in the world, the Petra Nova Project in 

14 Texas, which was just announced a few weeks ago.

15 This is projected to capture 90 percent 

16 of the carbon dioxide emissions from one of the 

17 plant’s generators. The Blue Green Alliance 

18 urges the EPA to include in the final rule 

19 language, encouraging states to use carbon 

20 capture mechanisms as a compliance tool.

21 Finally, I’d like to address community 

22 and economic stability and development. 

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1 Regardless of any action to address climate 

2 change, the U.S. is in the midst of an energy 

3 transition, and that in some cases can lead to 

4 job loss. 

5 A proper transition means direct support 

6 for workers by providing wages, benefits, 

7 training, education and the recognition of basic 

8 worker’s rights. It also means providing a 

9 community with resources to redevelop its economy 

10 and create high paying jobs that can match or 

11 exceed those that may have been lost.

12 The private sector, including utilities 

13 in all levels of government must work in tandem 

14 with communities to make these transitions a 

15 success. We believe that if well crafted, the 

16 Clean Power Plan has a potential to create and 

17 sustain quality family sustaining jobs across the 

18 country.

19 The potential can only be realized by 

20 engagement with stakeholders to develop a plan 

21 that includes adequately funded programs to meet 

22 the needs of workers and their industries, as 

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1 well as the communities and states in which they 

2 live.

3 We, at the Blue Green Alliance, applaud 

4 the EPA for moving forward and addressing the 

5 threat of climate change, and we look forward to 

6 working in states to develop well-crafted 

7 implementation plans that achieve these goals.

8 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much. Any 

9 questions on the testimony? Okay.

10 MS. MELTON: My name is Karen with a K, 

11 Melton, M-e-l-t-o-n, and I am testifying on 

12 behalf of the Chester County Citizens for Climate 

13 Protection, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to 

14 public outreach and education on climate change.

15 I spent the last two days at the Clean 

16 Power Plan hearing in Washington, and after 

17 listening to all of that testimony I threw away 

18 the remarks I had prepared and will instead talk 

19 about a dynamic I see at these hearings.

20 The two sides on this proposal are not 

21 really talking to each other. Each side is going 

22 through their talking points, but doing little to 

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1 address the other side’s concerns.

2 We environmentalist think if we make our 

3 points clearly and cite lots of studies and 

4 evidence and we share personal stories, and we 

5 bring our children to emphasize what’s at stake 

6 the other side will finally get it. 

7 Those representing fossil fuels never 

8 respond to our evidence, they only present 

9 industry talking points. So I’d like to quickly 

10 respond to some of those points that I hear most 

11 often raised by industry just to show we are 

12 listening and we’re thinking about those issues.

13 One, all off America depends on cheap 

14 energy supplied by coal. Response. Coal energy 

15 looks cheap on our utility bills, but that’s only 

16 because many billions of dollars and externality 

17 costs are paid for elsewhere. If they were 

18 included, studies show the cost of coal powered 

19 electricity would be two to three times higher.

20 Two, fossil fuels are reliable. And 

21 here, reliable is shorthand for the sun doesn’t 

22 always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow. 

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1 We actually know that, but the wind blows more at 

2 night, which helps balance out the daytime sun, 

3 and across a region with turbines in multiple 

4 locations, the wind is always blowing somewhere, 

5 which allows for predictable levels of production 

6 across those locations.

7 And there are many energy storage 

8 technologies available today and in prototype and 

9 on the drawing boards. The Clean Power Plan, by 

10 the way, will help direct resources to those 

11 storage technologies. 

12 Three, good paying jobs are at stake. 

13 Absolutely, we understand that. We need to make 

14 sure there is a just transition to family 

15 sustaining jobs for displaced fossil fuel 

16 workers. And we are committed to working on that 

17 with the unions, however, preventing the loss of 

18 these jobs is not a justification for destroying 

19 the planet.

20 Four, the Clean Power Plan is a token 

21 gesture. As far as I can tell the narrative here 

22 is that there is no point in the U.S. doing 

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1 anything because China and India will continue to 

2 grow their use of fossil fuels. 

3 Are they following what’s happening with 

4 the U.S.-China Climate Change Working Group? Do 

5 they know how much more solar China has installed 

6 than the U.S. already? Do they know that earlier 

7 this year India announced plans for another 7,500 

8 megawatts of solar power. The world is passing 

9 the U.S. by in the transition to clean energy 

10 economy. And unfortunately, the U.S. has refused 

11 to be a leader in this area.

12 America will no longer be competitive if 

13 energy costs rise. I think America will learn 

14 the lesson of efficiency that a number of other 

15 countries already know. There’s no reason why we 

16 have cable boxes that continue to use the same 

17 amount of energy after we turn them off than this 

18 myth of cheap energy.

19 Six, the grid can’t handle distributed 

20 energy. Well, we build a grid based on the 

21 constraints of centralized fossil fuel energy. 

22 We can modify it to support distributed energy. 

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1 Maybe just because I’m not entrenched in the 

2 details of how fossil fuel electricity works that 

3 I can envision an America where people are 

4 conscious of how the use energy because the true 

5 cost is on their electric bill, it’s not hidden 

6 in fossil fuel related health care cost, direct 

7 tax credits and the virtual give-away of coal 

8 leases on public lands by the Bureau of Land 

9 Management just to name a few.

10 In America where your microwave doesn’t 

11 use more energy in its lifetime powering the 

12 digital clock than it does cooking food, an 

13 America where buildings are built with highly 

14 efficient heating and cooling, where pretty much 

15 every new building has some solar PV capability, 

16 where electric cars can be plugged in overnight 

17 or while people are at work, and if needed, give 

18 some power back to the grid. There’s a 

19 demonstration project of this vehicle to grid 

20 technology right now at the University of 

21 Delaware. 

22 This isn’t a return to the Stone Age as 

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1 industry would like us to believe. It’s a new 

2 energy paradigm. I know it won’t be easy and it 

3 will take many years to accomplish, but in the 

4 words of former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, 

5 we do not face a choice between protecting our 

6 environment or protecting our economy, we face a 

7 choice between protecting our economy by 

8 protecting our environment, or allowing 

9 environmental havoc to create economic havoc.

10 EPA, please move forward with your Clean 

11 Power Plan. It’s a start, but let’s come back in 

12 a couple of years to talk about increasing the 

13 state targets. Thank you. 

14 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much. The 

15 next two speakers this afternoon will be Diana 

16 Aimes and Melanie McCoy.

17 MS. AIMES: Good afternoon. My name is 

18 Diana Aimes and thank you for the opportunity to 

19 speak in support of adopting strong carbon 

20 pollution limits on existing power plants.

21 Limiting emissions from existing power 

22 plants, which comprise the nation’s largest 

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1 source of carbon pollution is a critical step 

2 toward mitigating devastating climate change. 

3 The fossil fuel industry cites energy 

4 cost increases and job losses as reasons to 

5 reject carbon emission standards. But what about 

6 the cost of extreme weather events, heat waves, 

7 drought, loss of crops and livestock, 

8 catastrophic storms, flooding and fires all have 

9 economic consequences and all are exacerbated by 

10 climate change.

11 And what about the cost of heart attacks, 

12 or asthma, and other respiratory diseases, and 

13 the resulting loss of job productivity and 

14 sometimes life, itself?

15 As for the job loss issue, I’d like to 

16 share the story of my grandmother’s brother, Ira 

17 Brosious (phonetic), who was born in 1884 and by 

18 age 16 was working as a blacksmith in rural 

19 Jefferson County, Pennsylvania. 

20 By the time of the 1910 census, Uncle Ira 

21 had expanded his skills and become a carriage 

22 builder. The nascent auto industry made rapid 

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1 gains during the first decade of the 20th 

2 century, and by 1910 carriage makers were already 

3 realizing that for many purposes, the auto worked 

4 much better, faster and more economically than 

5 horse-drawn carriages could. So makers of 

6 carriages, including Uncle Ira, took 

7 opportunities presented by the new industry. 

8 Carriage makers were well positioned to 

9 transition into building auto bodies or to 

10 becoming mechanics, which is exactly what my 

11 Uncle Ira was doing by 1920.

12 By 1930 Uncle Ira put his mechanical 

13 talents to use as a drilling contractor in the 

14 oil and gas industry. As times and technology 

15 changed, Uncle Ira learned new skills and stayed 

16 employed. And if he were around today I think 

17 he’d probably be building and installing solar 

18 panels.

19 The renewable energy and energy 

20 efficiency sectors offer much opportunity for 

21 willing workers, and I believe that part of the 

22 action plan for dealing with climate change 

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1 should include assisting workers who wish to 

2 retrain for renewable energy jobs.

3 It is time for action. Climate change 

4 poses enormous and serious threats to national 

5 security, human health, and the environment. I 

6 want to make it clear the proposed EPA carbon 

7 emission standards are a good start, but I 

8 believe that American ingenuity and enterprise 

9 can accommodate a much faster reduction in 

10 greenhouse gases if there is the political will 

11 to do so. 

12 There is no more imperative issue than 

13 climate change. We, in the United States must 

14 cut our carbon emissions by a significant amount. 

15 We must set an example for India, China and the 

16 rest of the world, and it is imperative that we 

17 do it now. 

18 I urge the EPA not only to move swiftly 

19 forward with implementing the carbon emission 

20 standards on existing power plants, but also to 

21 make them much stronger than those currently 

22 proposed. Thank you very much. 

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1 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much. 

2 MS. MCCOY: Hi. Before I start I’d like 

3 to say I have solar panels on my house and I 

4 drive a Volt. But I do represent the Michigan 

5 Municipal Electric Association. I’m Melanie 

6 McCoy, M-c-C-o-y, and I’m the general manager of 

7 a municipal public power system located in 

8 Sebewaing, Michigan. It’s a rural agricultural 

9 village of almost 2000 people in the very tip of 

10 the Michigan thumb. I have my map here with me.

11 I also serve as the President of the 

12 Board of the Michigan Municipal Electrical 

13 Association or MMEA, which is a state association 

14 of more than 40 municipal power systems, some of 

15 which owe and operate 17 fossil fired plants, 

16 most of them under 80 megawatts that may be 

17 impacted by the rule.

18 I speak on both Sebewaing’s and MMEA’s 

19 behalf today asking for that balance between 

20 carbon reduction and electricity cost.

21 Non-profit municipal utilities and their 

22 power systems are critical to local communities 

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1 across the nation. Despite the small size of 

2 many of these public systems and their power 

3 plants, these utilities are essential for 

4 electric reliability, low electric prices and 

5 energy supplied diversity.

6 All MMEA systems are small entities under 

7 the small business statute. We’re also local 

8 communities that have a commitment to 

9 environmental stewardship, clean energy, but must 

10 balance that with cost, economics, jobs and 

11 community concerns.

12 I’m here because Michigan Public Power 

13 and other municipal systems are concerned that we 

14 will bear the brunt of the EPA’s proposed Clean 

15 Power Plan in ways that could put some of our 

16 communities at risk.

17 Our small plants will suffer due to the 

18 economy as scales, involved with changes to these 

19 units with small customer basis. This would 

20 include diseconomies in trying to achieve the 

21 optimistic heat rate efficiency improvements at 

22 these plants. If we knew there were 

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1 efficiencies, we would make them, we do every

2 day.

3 But as is suggesting in the Building 

4 Block 1, many of the Michigan public power 

5 systems have only a single basic unit or a very 

6 small number of units, so there is no ability to 

7 redispatch to a lower emitting unit or apply 

8 controls flexibly across multiple unites.

9 Often these units are located in isolated 

10 rural load pocket areas which there is limited 

11 available options for securing power. Likewise, 

12 from municipal services without their own 

13 generators like in Sebewaing, we have no ability 

14 to influence the pollution control choices that 

15 will be made by our energy suppliers and will be 

16 subject to the higher cost of the environmental 

17 dispatch that may affect our supplies because of 

18 the rule.

19 EPA, itself, has said that they recognize 

20 that the proposed rules that municipal utilities, 

21 small entities and utilities with only one unit 

22 may suffer.

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1 Other public power concerns are there is 

2 no room for economic growth. The rule does not 

3 provide an adequate factor for economic load 

4 growth and will thus negatively affect us for 

5 growing our manufacturing jobs and our local and 

6 state economies. Michigan in my area is still 

7 recovering and we’re still kind of on the edge of 

8 the recession.

9 Number two, it’s disconnected from other 

10 Clean Air Act rules. The proposed carbon 

11 emission rule may force the closure of small 

12 public power plants that have already invested 

13 millions of dollars to address requirements under 

14 EPA’s Clean Air Act rules for NOx, SO2 mercury 

15 and other pollutants.

16 And three, there’s no credit for clean 

17 energy actions. EPA’s proposed rule also 

18 provides no credit for plant improvements, energy 

19 efficiency programs and renewable energy projects 

20 undertaken by utilities between the proposed 

21 baseline rule of 2005 and the proposed start date 

22 of 2012. This includes investment in small 

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1 exiting hydroelectric plants of 10 megawatts or 

2 less.

3 I spent years as general manager of 

4 Wyandotte Municipal just south of Detroit where 

5 we undertook one of the most ambitious efforts in 

6 the nation to transform our fossil fired 

7 community to a green energy community. Using the 

8 resources from the Obama Administration’s EPA and 

9 the DOE, plus our own resources, we lost major 

10 energy efficiency, programs for our residents. 

11 We installed the largest solar project in the 

12 state of Michigan on a public building and we 

13 launched a major downtown geothermal project.

14 All of this was between 2009 and 2012. 

15 Under EPA’s proposed rule none of that counts for 

16 Wyhandotte, or others like them which essentially 

17 is punishing their progressive clean energy 

18 communities.

19 Given these concerns, the Michigan Public 

20 Power asks EPA to one, set the effected EGU 

21 threshold at greater than 73 megawatts and not 

22 use the 260 million BTU’s of heat input as the 

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1 threshold. 

2 Two, include small, less than 10 megawatt 

3 existing hydro in the state goal calculations.

4 Three, make clear that states can and 

5 ought to subcategorize effected EGU sources to 

6 address small municipal systems and unit 

7 concerns.

8 And four, make sure the rule has maximum 

9 flexibility to enable states to address municipal 

10 power concerns. States need time and flexibility 

11 to design interstate and interstate carbon 

12 trading and needs more room. Thank you very 

13 much, I ran out of time. I’ll submit my comments 

14 in writing. Thank you. 

15 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much. 

16 MS. MCCOY: Uh-huh.

17 MR. WAYLAND: And if you have more there 

18 you can just leave it here and we’ll get it 

19 included in the record.

20 MS. MCCOY: Okay, great. Okay, thank 

21 you.

22 MR. WAYLAND: But you’re also welcome, as 

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1 I said earlier, to submit more.

2 MS. MCCOY: And we probably will. Thank 

3 you. 

4 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much. Our 

5 next two speakers this afternoon will be Veronica 

6 Coptis and David Moscatello.

7 MS. COPTIS: Hello. My name is Veronica 

8 Coptis, C-o-p-t-i-s, and I am a community 

9 organizer with the Center for Coal Field Justice. 

10 I grew up in the coal fields not too far from 

11 here in Greene County, Pennsylvania, and I grew 

12 up next to the largest coal processing facility 

13 in the country. And I currently now live 

14 surrounded by Shell gas activity on the other 

15 side of the county.

16 Thankfully, a dirty coal fired power 

17 plant less than five miles away from my home 

18 recently idled, but without strong rules still 

19 has the potential to reopen.

20 I appreciate the opportunity to comment 

21 on the U.S. EPA’s Clean Power Plan for Existing 

22 Power Plants and Carbon Pollution Standard for 

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1 Modified Sources. These rules are a small step 

2 in the right direction. The result of this plan 

3 will have a significant impact to my life and the 

4 communities on the front lines of coal extraction 

5 and combustion across the county.

6 The EPA has a responsibility to make sure 

7 that that impact is for the better. For too many 

8 years my friends and family have suffered serious 

9 health impacts from the life cycle of coal. All 

10 too often coal extraction and combustion and 

11 power plants occur in designated environmental 

12 justice areas, communities with large minority 

13 populations and/or low income levels.

14 In fact, environmental justice areas are 

15 expanding in southwestern Pennsylvania following 

16 the industry’s reckless pursuit of coal at all 

17 cost. Corporations take advantage of these areas 

18 and have for generations. 

19 The EPA needs to makes sure these carbon 

20 rules are as stringent as possible to offer much 

21 needed relief to people living within the dirty 

22 coal cycle like my community.

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1 In southwestern Pennsylvania many of the 

2 coal filed areas are also exploding with shale 

3 gas extraction. So without a plan that focuses 

4 on renewables, these same communities will see 

5 shale gas drilling increase even more as power 

6 plants convert to gas. 

7 This will not alleviate the negative 

8 health impacts we’re already seeing from the coal 

9 cycle, because the extraction of gas has serious 

10 health impacts as well in massive methane 

11 emissions that would just increase the damages of 

12 climate change.

13 It is clear that these new regulations 

14 are going to create significant changes to front 

15 line communities and the EPA has a responsibility 

16 to make sure those are just and equitable.

17 This transition will have many great 

18 improvements to our communities, but if those 

19 most impacted are not part of the conversation, 

20 there will also be negative impacts to those 

21 living on the front lines. This absolutely 

22 includes the coal miners who are here and were 

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1 here today, and those who couldn’t make the trip. 

2 I doubt very much that anyone here today will 

3 argue against the benefit of clean air and clean 

4 water.

5 What is a real concern for myself and the 

6 folks in my community is that whatever comes next 

7 when we move beyond coal, those of us in the coal 

8 fields will be left behind. And as I said 

9 before, those who stand to be the most impacted 

10 must play an active role in this conversation on 

11 transition.

12 Without smart steps toward reducing 

13 carbon emissions and adjust transition moving 

14 beyond all fossil fuels, areas like Greene County 

15 are not going to have a promising future. I 

16 often wonder if I will be able to raise a healthy 

17 family in the area and community I love. It is 

18 crucial for the future of my future and the 

19 future of all of our children that the EPA take 

20 the strongest standards as possible. Thank you. 

21 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much. 

22 MR. MOSCATELLO: My name is David 

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1 Moscatello, M-o-s-c-a-t-e-l-l-o, from 

2 Philadelphia. I’m representing the Sierra Club, 

3 and myself, and a dozen other environmental 

4 groups.

5 I strongly support the EPA’s effort to 

6 limit carbon pollution from power plants. 

7 Reducing pollution from these power plants is an 

8 essential step to reduce other directly harmful 

9 pollutants and to address climate change. 

10 Speaking of those other pollutants, I look 

11 forward to some serious coal ash regulations.

12 The flexible standards proposed by the 

13 EPA to cut carbon emissions from power plants by 

14 at least 30 percent by 2005 -- below 2005 levels 

15 by 2030 are readily achievable using existing 

16 technologies. We can replace the retired dirty 

17 coal plants with geothermal, solar and wind 

18 energy, and the growth in these industries will 

19 more than replace the jobs lost from the coal 

20 industry.

21 Last year wind energy contributed just 

22 over four percent of total U.S. electricity, up 

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1 from under two percent just five years ago. As 

2 of 2014 we have 61 gigawatts of wind capacity 

3 installed and greater than 12 gigawatts under 

4 construction this year. And I should mention 

5 that China has more installed wind capacity than 

6 we do to date.

7 At the end of 2013, nearly 80,000 workers 

8 were employed in wind industry and related jobs 

9 in the U.S.A. This is nearly as many workers as 

10 all the coal miners in the U.S. at this time, and 

11 most of these jobs have been created since 2005. 

12 In fact, according to the American Wind Energy 

13 Association, more than 89 percent of all U.S. 

14 wind capacity has been installed since 2005.

15 Prior to that only one wind turbine 

16 manufacturer assembled utility scale turbines in 

17 the U.S. By the end of 2012 there were twelve 

18 nacelle assembly facilities on line. This growth 

19 and U.S. wind related manufacturing has occurred 

20 across the entire supply chain with over 500 wind 

21 related manufacturing facilities across 44 states 

22 supplying components to the industry. So nearly 

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1 70 percent of U.S. deployed turbines, value is 

2 not being manufactured domestically.

3 In addition to the direct manufacturing 

4 maintenance jobs, wind turbines have become a 

5 drought proof cash crop for farmers and ranchers 

6 who host turbines on their land. 

7 Lessons from the wind farms deployed to 

8 date have resulted in substantial improvements in 

9 turbine technology with turbines getting larger 

10 and more efficient and now including energy 

11 storage for individual turbines to smooth out the 

12 energy supply.

13 2013 solar was the second largest source 

14 of new electricity generating capacity in the 

15 U.S., exceeded only by, unfortunately, natural 

16 gas, by 41 percent over 2012, and nearly 15 times 

17 the amount installed in 2008. 

18 The price of solar PV has dropped more 

19 than 75 percent since 2008 and was 15 percent 

20 less at the end of 2013 to 2012. And more solar 

21 has been installed in the U.S. in the last 18 

22 months than in the prior 30 years. We’re 

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1 starting to see progress from our experience.

2 Not only are prices for both solar and 

3 wind power dropping rapidly, but efficiency is 

4 increasing and new types of batteries are being 

5 deployed to smooth out the availability.

6 Furthermore, no state, Pennsylvania 

7 included, has to go it alone any more than we do 

8 now. Given the proximity to the rest of the 

9 densely populated mid-Atlantic and northeastern 

10 states, offshore wind is an essential part of our 

11 wind resources that we haven’t begun to tap. 

12 Studies of our actual regional grid, PJM 

13 grid, encompassing Pennsylvania, New Jersey, 

14 Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and 

15 Ohio and parts of several other states have found 

16 that combinations of solar, wind and electro 

17 chemical storage can power the grid with up to 

18 99.9 percent reliability, tossing that old line 

19 that the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind 

20 doesn’t always blow into the dust bin of retired 

21 excuses.

22 It’s true that this measure alone won’t 

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1 reverse global warming, but it’s a good step in 

2 the right direction. And by pushing the required 

3 renewable technologies now, the Unites States can 

4 gain a competitive advantage, true energy 

5 independence and substantially enhance national 

6 security. And this will certainly beat trying 

7 to buy the same technology from China 20 years 

8 from now.

9 Yes, every nation in the world needs to 

10 address the same questions, but we don’t control 

11 the world, and the fact that some countries 

12 behave badly in this regard is no reason to dodge 

13 our own responsibilities. We will not lead from 

14 behind. Thank you. 

15 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you both very much. 

16 David, do you want to leave your remarks? 

17 Okay, we’re going to try to get through 

18 four more speakers here before we take the dinner 

19 break. So our next two speakers will be Seth 

20 Long and Sharon Pillar.

21 MR. LONG: Hi, my name is Seth Long. 

22 Actually, I’ll be reading the testimony of Dylan 

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1 Voorhees, who is unable to be here. Dillon is 

2 the Clean Energy Director of the National

3 Resources Council in Maine, and his testimony is 

4 in support of those proposed carbon rules. 

5 The National Resources Council of Maine 

6 is a non-profit membership organization 

7 representing about 12,000 members and activists 

8 working to protect, restore and conserve Maine’s 

9 environment and improve the air quality, improve 

10 clean energy and advocate for action on climate 

11 change, which are high priorities for me. 

12 Dylan believes -- Dylan and the Clean 

13 Energy -- excuse me, Dylan and the National 

14 Resources Council of Maine believe that EPA’s 

15 proposed carbon pollution standards for power 

16 plants are essential to protecting Maine’s people 

17 and the environment, most importantly because 

18 Maine’s environment is tied to the state’s 

19 culture and economy in unique ways making it 

20 especially critical that climate change is 

21 addressed and power plant air pollution reduced.

22 Folks all across Maine care deeply about 

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1 climate and its impact on the state. There are a 

2 few words that Dylan wanted to convey, in 

3 particular from Harry Dwyer, a logger and 

4 licensed forester from Fayette, Maine. Sadly, 

5 Harry had passed away in 2013 but his story and 

6 legacy live on. 

7 His story also rings true for other rural 

8 and agricultural area like Mounds, where I’m 

9 from. Harry says I don’t think climate change is 

10 a future problem. I think we’re in the midst of 

11 it right now and I’ve been absorbing the economic 

12 cost of lost work time when heavy rain shuts us 

13 down and we are waiting for the ground to freeze 

14 to start a logging job.

15 Ten or fifteen years ago we didn’t have 

16 to worry about the insects carrying Lyme disease 

17 in central Maine. Now I’m picking ticks off 

18 hours after I get home. They just weren’t here 

19 because we used to have those cold winters and I 

20 kept them at bay. 

21 I’m a parent and the world we hand off to 

22 our children matters more to me than the lost 

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1 work time and the economic cost of these things. 

2 Our asthma rates, especially in childhood asthma 

3 are far higher than is morally or ethically 

4 defensible. If you ever laid away at night 

5 listening to your child struggle to breathe, and 

6 then to go everywhere with an inhaler, wondering 

7 at what point are we going to go to the hospital 

8 because the inhaler and nebulizer are not 

9 helping? Then you will agree that these rules 

10 are long overdue.

11 Quoting Harry’s files, the main people 

12 caught in the crossfire of warming and pollution, 

13 a vulnerable spot but will only get worse.

14 And the loss of traditional winter and 

15 declining habitat for species have increased in 

16 base of past, present and throughout to the 

17 forest products, industry in Maine and I would 

18 add other states.

19 I’m talking about over 23,000 kids in 

20 Maine suffering from asthma. Thank you and I’ll 

21 submit Dylan’s testimony in writing as well.

22 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you, very much.

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1 MS. PILLAR: Hello. My name is Sharon 

2 Pillar. P, as in Pittsburgh, i-l-l-a-r. I am 

3 the elected President of the Solar Unified 

4 Network of Western Pennsylvania or SUNWP, as we 

5 say. Our region’s industry and advocacy group 

6 comprised of solar developers, installers, solar 

7 owners, non-profit organizations and individuals 

8 interested in deploying more solar power. 

9 And I am employed as the Vice-President 

10 of Smart Pounder, the nation’s leading non-profit 

11 marketing firm dedicated to promoting clean, 

12 renewable energy, and energy efficiency to help 

13 American’s make smart energy choices.

14 We at SUNWP wholeheartedly support the 

15 EPA’s Clean Power Plan to curb carbon emissions 

16 from existing electricity sources. For western 

17 Pennsylvania this change has significant and 

18 important ramifications and opportunities.

19 One important question that we ask is can 

20 we achieve these proposed reductions? And the 

21 answer, we feel, is a resounding yes. The 

22 renewable energy labs conducted a technical 

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1 feasibility study of solar potential and found 

2 that Pennsylvania has the technical capability to 

3 produce more than 600,000 gigawatt hours of 

4 electricity through solar every year, which is 

5 almost four-and-a-half times our current retail 

6 sales of electricity in our state.

7 We have an enormous potential, a source 

8 of clean energy that is severely underutilized.

9 The second important question we ask is 

10 should we try to achieve these reductions. And 

11 again, our answer is a resounding yes. 

12 In addition to mitigating the disastrous 

13 impacts of climate change, reducing carbon output 

14 from power plants through the use of clean energy 

15 and energy efficiency has immediate benefits to 

16 the health of the people of our region.

17 A Carnegie Mellon University study last 

18 year showed that the societal benefits of 

19 replacing carbon intensive fuels with wind and 

20 solar have far greater environmental and health 

21 benefits in Ohio, here in Pennsylvania and West 

22 Virginia than in anywhere else in the country 

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1 because our air quality presents more health 

2 risks than anywhere else in the nature.

3 Solar electricity in Pennsylvania 

4 provides $75 per megawatt hour in health and 

5 environmental benefits every year, fifteen times 

6 more than the same solar production as you would 

7 find in a state like Arizona, because it 

8 displaces our dirty air from fossil fuels.

9 Transitioning to renewables is a good 

10 investment in Pennsylvania for our economy and 

11 most importantly for the health of our people. 

12 And speaking of good investment, a homeowner who 

13 continues to rent their electricity from a fossil 

14 fuel intensive utility will pay out more than 

15 $30,000 in electricity payments over the next 25 

16 years. Whereas the same homeowner who invests in 

17 solar today will save and profit with more than 

18 $20,000 over that same time period. Solar does 

19 make economic sense.

20 Solar energy also has proven benefits to 

21 the electricity grid and it operates at full 

22 force during the hottest hours of the year and 

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1 shaves expensive peak demand, and in turn keeping 

2 down the cost of electricity for all ratepayers.

3 Investments in clean energy will 

4 transform our economy and bring thousands of new 

5 jobs to our region. We do understand that this 

6 transition will alter the workforce and 

7 therefore, we encourage the state and federal 

8 leaders to attract clean energy job training and 

9 companies to those locations where fossil fuel 

10 jobs will be eliminated so that our citizens can 

11 continue to provide for their families in their 

12 communities.

13 And yes, we do need to update the hundred 

14 year old transmission systems to accommodate new 

15 technologies, just as we have done with our 

16 transportation, information and health care 

17 technology systems. We no longer transport goods 

18 by canal, use telegraphs or typewriters and it’s 

19 unthinkable that we’d not use antibiotics to cure 

20 common infections.

21 We must move our energy systems into the 

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1 being of our people, our economy and our planet. 

2 The fossil fuel dominate electricity system is 

3 antiquated, dirty and very dangerous. We can and 

4 we should lead the world on carbon reductions, 

5 and we applaud the EPA for your leadership. 

6 Thank you very much. 

7 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much. Any 

8 questions from the panel? No? Thank you very 

9 much. 

10 Okay, our last two speakers this 

11 afternoon before we break for dinner will be Lea 

12 Geisse and Douglas Shields. 

13 MS. GEISSE: Hello, my name is Lea 

14 Geisse. I’m a 27-year maintenance employee, 

15 proud third generation union member from Canton, 

16 Ohio, and I’m the Regional Program Manager from 

17 the Blue Green Alliance.

18 We, at the Blue Green Alliance are guided 

19 by simple philosophy. We believe that Americans 

20 don’t have to choose between good jobs and a 

21 clean environment. We can and must have both.

22 We also believe that unions are and must 

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1 continue to be a power voice for protecting 

2 workers, communities, and our environment. A 

3 changing climate is a threat to our health, to 

4 our communities and to the economy. We must act. 

5 It’s why we support the Environmental 

6 Protection Agency’s authority to implement 

7 standards that limit carbon pollution from 

8 existing sources. 

9 The first ever proposed limits on 

10 emissions from existing power plants are a step 

11 forward as we work to tackle climate change while 

12 ensuring power reliability and fostering economic 

13 stability.

14 We’re pleased that this rule permits each 

15 state to craft a compliance plan that is tailored 

16 to specifics of its regional and local economy. 

17 That will protect existing jobs while reducing 

18 emissions. And that we can create opportunities 

19 to grow new jobs, encourage investments and 

20 jumpstart new technologies. 

21 The plan that’s best for Ohio will be 

22 crafted by Ohioans. This proposal can be a 

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1 significant step forward if we all engage to 

2 develop and implement it. States must be 

3 encouraged to include labor voices in these 

4 discussions. 

5 While this is about the environment, it’s 

6 also about making the power supply as reliable 

7 and efficient as possible. Over ten years ago a 

8 computer glitch and a tree branch caused the 

9 biggest blackout we’ve ever seen, while this 

10 historic power outage began in Ohio and affected 

11 50 million people in eight states and parts of 

12 Canada. 

13 The Clean Power Plan will promote 

14 innovative ways to upgrade and invest in our 

15 electric grid and overall infrastructure. It’s 

16 imperative that we make these investments to 

17 prevent infrastructure failures like the 2003 

18 blackout.

19 Along those same lines the emphasis the 

20 plan places on expanding renewable energy and 

21 energy efficiency efforts is a good one. 

22 Governor Kasich bowed to special interests and 

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1 froze Ohio’s renewable energy standard. We must 

2 reverse that course because the state will be 

3 better positioned to diversify our energy 

4 portfolio by making renewables a bigger portion 

5 of the state’s energy mix.

6 If we do this right the Clean Power Plan 

7 has the potential to create and sustain quality 

8 family sustaining jobs across the country. Each 

9 state has the opportunity to craft a plan that 

10 works for them.

11 And the Blue Green Alliance is working in 

12 Ohio and around the country to make sure that the 

13 voice of working people is brought to the 

14 planning process. We will continue to work to 

15 make sure this gets done the right way, and that 

16 workers have a say in their economic and 

17 environmental future. Thank you. 

18 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much. Any 

19 questions?

20 MR. SHIELDS: Good day. My name is 

21 Douglas Shields. I’ll spell it. Douglas A. 

22 S-h-i-e-l-d-s. I’m a resident of the city of the 

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1 city of Pittsburgh. I was formerly a litigation 

2 paralegal in the environmental law sector for 

3 corporate work here in Pittsburgh. I have also 

4 served 20 years in Pittsburgh City Council as a 

5 staffer, four years as a member -- or eight years 

6 as a member, four years as president of 

7 Pittsburgh City Council, during which time I 

8 introduced legislation to ban shale gas 

9 exploitation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the 

10 first in the country, on November 16, 2010.

11 Today I am very happy to know that EPA is 

12 taking the peoples’ testimony. Today you 

13 probably heard from those who claim that clean 

14 air and public health is secondary to economic 

15 benefits and corporate profit.

16 I would hope that the EPA recognizes its 

17 mission as an agency to protect the environment 

18 so that we, the people, may all live a healthier 

19 life. Critics paint the pictures usual of doom 

20 and gloom in a fossil free energy world. 

21 Unfortunately, that isn’t the case given the 

22 sustainable energy systems coming online now for 

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1 decades. This is not new technology or unproven 

2 technology.

3 Unfortunately, that isn’t the case as so 

4 stated that I’ve heard yesterday at rallies led 

5 by the Governor of Pennsylvania and today’s 

6 demonstrations and so forth. Critics always 

7 paint a picture of doom and gloom in a fossil 

8 fuel energy world.

9 Unfortunately, that isn’t the case given 

10 the sustainable energy systems that we have 

11 available to us to replace fossil fuels

12 As was the case when the nation began to 

13 recycle. This would kill industry, increase cost 

14 for citizens for paper. Well, guess what 

15 happened? New industries came into being, new 

16 jobs were created. New efficiencies in market 

17 were developed.

18 Again, critics seen -- a progress always 

19 seemed to offer the all or nothing proposition. 

20 It won’t do this, it won’t do that, the lights 

21 will go off and we’ll all be out of work. That’s 

22 what I keep hearing today.

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1 But history teaches us that time and 

2 again these critics have been proven wrong. Seat 

3 belts in cars did not kill the automobile, they 

4 saved lives. Environmental laws did not kill 

5 industry, they created new ones.

6 We know that these proposed changes are 

7 incremental. Every day we lessen our dependency 

8 on fossil fuel to clean energy is a day when the 

9 air quality gets better. Every day new markets 

10 are developed for wind, solar and other 

11 sustainable less polluting energy sources.

12 Germany recently just crossed the 50 

13 percent threshold for producing its domestic 

14 energy needs. And now we have an energy gap in 

15 technology. You know, we talked about the 

16 missile gap back in the 1960's with President 

17 Kennedy. We’re falling behind, and as a previous 

18 speaker said, we can’t lead from behind.

19 The naysayers always seem to forget about 

20 American’s capability for innovation and 

21 adaptability, that’s true of people around the 

22 world. These new rules promote new market driven 

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1 technologies that begin to shape our future, a 

2 future that is less threatening to the public’s 

3 health, welfare and safety. It creates new jobs 

4 and secures economic growth too.

5 The proposed air quality rules mean that 

6 about 50,000 children yet to be born will not 

7 develop asthma. You can monetize that if you 

8 like. These are billions of dollars. It is 

9 estimated about eight billion dollars will be 

10 spent to comply by industry. We also know that 

11 it will save this country 50 million dollars --

12 or 50 billion dollars in healthcare costs related 

13 to air pollution.

14 The World Health Organization reports 

15 that in 2012 around seven million people died, 

16 one in eight, of total global deaths as a result 

17 of air pollution exposure. This finding more 

18 than doubles previous estimates and confirms that 

19 air pollution is now the world’s largest single 

20 environmental health risk, and reducing air 

21 pollution can save millions of lives.

22 A University of Pittsburgh study recently 

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1 released about the same time as the WHO study 

2 basically says the same thing as it applies to 

3 here. We got a lot of cancer in Allegheny 

4 County. 

5 Outdoor pollution caused deaths break 

6 down by disease, by symmetric heart disease, 40 

7 percent, 40 percent of the strokes, 11 percent 

8 chronic obstructive pulmonary lung diseases, six 

9 percent cancer and three percent acute lower 

10 respiratory infections in children, and on and 

11 on.

12 There is no debate anymore. It is time 

13 to put aside the profiteer’s agenda and embrace a 

14 healthy, clean future for America. And as a 

15 final note, I’ve also heard this is not a federal 

16 matter. This should be done at the state level. 

17 Well, I’m going to leave with you today 

18 as part of my testimony, a recent audit from last 

19 week PA Auditor General DePasquale on 

20 Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental 

21 Protection. It is a failed agency by any measure 

22 or any standard. It has been politicized, people 

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1 with agendas where 28 million dollars were spent 

2 by oil and gas industry to secure 

3 unconstitutional laws that have been shown in the 

4 court. 

5 This is a failed agency. And the only 

6 agency we have left is the EPA to begin to 

7 enforce this. The EPA was forced out of 

8 Pavilion, Wyoming. It was forced out of Texas in 

9 the Steve Lipsky case. And look what happened in 

10 Dimock. These are political decisions. The 

11 people that work at the EPA know what their job 

12 is and know how to do it. 

13 Unfortunately, my organization the DEP in 

14 Pennsylvania, by this audit documented has 

15 completely failed in its mission to protect the 

16 public’s health with regard to the shale gas that 

17 has come upon us in the fracking and the drilling 

18 here. No less so that this agency cannot 

19 regulate that industry. They cannot regulate air 

20 quality either. In fact, they should maybe take 

21 a time out until they get their act together and 

22 give it all over to you guys until such time that 

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1 they can show that they’re a responsible, capable 

2 agency of fulfilling its mission, job and its 

3 constitutional obligations in Pennsylvania.

4 It’s a joke. So when you see these 

5 Republican governors out there going -- chasing 

6 the EPA out of the state, we can do this 

7 ourselves, the answer is no, they can’t. And I 

8 don’t want to live in a world where it’s run by 

9 people that are promoting pollution instead of my 

10 health, welfare and safety. Thank you. 

11 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you for your 

12 comments. Thank you very much. 

13 MR. SHIELDS: Where do I leave the 

14 comments?

15 MR. WAYLAND: Right here.

16 MR. SHIELDS: Okay. 

17 MR. WAYLAND: Thank you very much. This 

18 is going to conclude the morning and the 

19 afternoon session of the public hearing today in 

20 Pittsburgh. I personally would like to thank all 

21 of you for your cooperation and attendance today. 

22 I’d also like to thank you for the 

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1 privilege of being here to hear your comments 

2 today. I can assure you that everything that 

3 we’ve heard today will be taken back to 

4 Washington to Research Triangle Park, and all of 

5 your comments and input into the carbon pollution 

6 plan will be considered as we develop the final 

7 rule. So from a personal perspective I would 

8 like to say thank you. 

9 We’re going to take a dinner break now. 

10 We will reconvene at 6:00 in this room. The 

11 security people in the building have asked that 

12 you clear this room for the dinner break, you do 

13 not remain here. And when you come back after 

14 dinner, you’ll be in the very capable hands of 

15 Tom Powers in the back as your Hearing Chair. 

16 Christian Fellner will be here and Jeremy Mark 

17 will be here. I, yours truly, will not be here. 

18 But again, on a personal perspective, thank you 

19 very much for your time today, we greatly 

20 appreciate the hospitality afforded to us here in 

21 Pittsburgh today.

22 Thank you very much, we’re in recess.

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1 [Dinner recess from 4:50 to 6:00 p.m.]

2 MR. GARVIN: Okay, we’re going to get 

3 started again. Good evening. This is our last 

4 session of the first day of the public hearing. 

5 My name is Shawn Garvin, I’m the Regional 

6 Administrator for U.S. EPA’s Mid-Atlantic Region.

7 I’m going to turn it over to -- I want to 

8 thank you all for being here. I’m going to turn 

9 it over to Tom Powers, who is going to run 

10 through a quick logistics and then we’ll take the 

11 first set of panelists. Thank you. 

12 MR. POWERS: Good evening everybody. I’m 

13 going to abbreviate the opening statement for 

14 some of you who may have been here earlier today, 

15 but we’ll mention the ground rules and so forth 

16 for those of you who weren’t.

17 First of all, I’m Tom Powers, Senior 

18 Policy Advisor to EPA’s Air Office in Washington. 

19 With me on the panel are Shawn, who you’ve 

20 already met, Christian Fellner and Jeremy Mark. 

21 We’re here tonight to hear your comments and your 

22 testimony on EPA’s Proposed Rules, actually two 

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1 rules under EPA’s Proposed Clean Power Plan, both 

2 for existing power plants and new and modified 

3 and reconstruction power plants.

4 This is one of four hearings that we’re 

5 running across the country this week on the two 

6 proposed rules. We’ve had a huge amount of 

7 response in the interest in these rules, so we 

8 are pleased to be able to hear from you tonight 

9 and from people across the country.

10 A few housekeeping rules just so things 

11 run smoothly. We have had a lot of pre-sign up 

12 for speaker slots, and the folks downstairs do a 

13 very good job of trying to move people around and 

14 replace people if there are gaps. 

15 So if you are planning to speak, 

16 hopefully you checked in or at least let us know 

17 that you’re here. The folks downstairs are 

18 bringing cards up for the order of speakers. And 

19 the only way you get your name on a card, so that 

20 I know you’re here to recognize you, is if you 

21 told the folks downstairs.

22 Also, this is Room A. There are two 

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1 sessions going simultaneously, Room A and Room B. 

2 If you were signed up for Room B, this would be a 

3 good time to go switch, which is on the 15th 

4 Floor.

5 I’ll be calling speakers up in pairs and 

6 I’ll try to give you a -- the people who are on 

7 deck a head’s up of who will be coming up next so 

8 you can get yourself ready. When I call on you 

9 to speak and you begin, it’s really helpful to 

10 the court reporter, these hearings are all being 

11 transcribed, so there’s a record of them, if you 

12 could state your name clearly and spell it. It 

13 makes it a lot easier for her to make sure that 

14 we identify people correctly.

15 You will have five minutes, each person 

16 has five minutes. We have a timer over here in 

17 front of Jeremy. It’s green to start. When 

18 you’re at four minutes it turns yellow. When 

19 it’s five minutes it turns red. We ask people to 

20 adhere to that out of respect for other people 

21 who are waiting to testify. 

22 Also, we assure people that we read 

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1 things just as much as we listen. Any comments 

2 that you don’t get to make orally that you get to 

3 us in writing by the close of written comment 

4 date on October 16th will most definitely be read 

5 and considered just the same way as oral 

6 testimony.

7 I think that’s a pretty good summary of a 

8 much longer set of remarks here. So with no 

9 further opening, we’ll get started. We are 

10 scheduled to go until 8:00 p.m. tonight. If you 

11 have any questions, there are numbers of folks 

12 around who will be happy to answer them.

13 And with that I’m going to call the first 

14 two speakers who are Vernon Haltom, and Paula 

15 Swearengin. And on deck is Dennis Groce and --

16 Mariam Lindauer. Mr. Haltom, I have your name 

17 first so you’re welcome to proceed with you’re 

18 ready.

19 MR. HALTOM: Okay. My name is Vernon 

20 Haltom. That’s H-a-l-t-o-m. I’m the Executive 

21 Director of Coal River Mountain Watch, which is 

22 based in Naoma, West Virginia. I’m also active 

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1 with the Appalachian Community Health Emergency 

2 Campaign. And in a previous career I was a 

3 Weapons Safety Officer in the U.S. Air Force.

4 So one of the things that you’ve heard a 

5 lot today is about jobs. Presently about 20,000 

6 West Virginians are employed by the coal 

7 industry, and that’s less than four percent of 

8 the workforce, just to kind of keep things in 

9 perspective.

10 But there are 300,000 West Virginians 

11 whose water was poisoned in January. Those 

12 people are not here today. They’ve got lives, 

13 they have families, they have illnesses to take 

14 care of. They have loved ones to take care of. 

15 They’re not here today. Their lives do not 

16 benefit from coal. In fact, they were horribly 

17 impacted by an outlaw poorly regulated industry.

18 Of the 300,000 whose tap water was 

19 poisoned in January, approximately 100,000 have 

20 suffered health impacts as a result. And this is 

21 a coal cleaning chemical. Let’s make no mistake, 

22 this accident was not separate from the coal 

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1 industry. One hundred thousand six people, 

2 20,000 West Virginian miners. That’s five for 

3 each West Virginia miner. 

4 So we hear our politicians advocate 

5 balance. So how many sick people, how many lives 

6 balance a single coal job? 

7 Yes, this was an accident, but accidents 

8 are caused, as a former safety professional, we 

9 know that accidents are caused. There’s always 

10 something in the chain that can be prevented to 

11 keep that from happening.

12 But especially in a state like West 

13 Virginia where environmental and safety 

14 inspectors are ordered to take it easy on coal. 

15 They’re told to look the other way. To come back 

16 later and see if things have been fixed. 

17 This is where violators take deadly 

18 shortcuts, and we have disasters such as the 

19 April, 2010 Upper Big Branch explosion taking the 

20 lives of 29 miners in the Coal River Valley five 

21 minutes away from our office.

22 If the EPA wants this plan to work, it’s 

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1 going to have to grow some teeth to make states 

2 like West Virginia, whose leaders dance to the 

3 coal industry tune, take real action. 

4 West Virginia has made it plain that they 

5 will not comply of their accord. And we need 

6 real federal enforcement, not just for this rule, 

7 but for the existing laws and regulations that 

8 are swept under the rug by the State regulators 

9 that we have.

10 Back to those hundreds of thousands of 

11 West Virginians with poison water, that does not 

12 even include the thousands of deaths and health 

13 impacts each year associated with mountaintop 

14 removal, which will not be significantly reduced 

15 by this proposed measures. These measures do 

16 nothing to relieve front line communities choking 

17 on a toxic grip of filthy extraction industries, 

18 including coal, fracked gas, nuclear offshore 

19 drilling and industrial biomass. Business as 

20 usual has no place in a clean energy plan. 

21 The giddy advocacy of such dangerous fuel 

22 sources casts a noxious cloud over the plan’s 

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1 noble intent to reduce global warming and the 

2 affording clean options of energy efficiency and 

3 renewable energy. 

4 So I was thinking about this plan, people 

5 talk about steps forward. Well, it’s more like a 

6 dance -- oh, I see I’ve got four minutes left.

7 MR. POWERS: No, that’s one minutes.

8 MR. HOLTOM: That’s what I meant. Some 

9 steps forward, some steps back, and a lot of 

10 steps sideways, so I urge you to take the steps 

11 forward. Do not promote fracking and the other 

12 dirty energy sources, and in order to stop 

13 mountaintop removal, there is a bill in the 

14 federal legislation, the Appalachian Community 

15 Health Emergency Act, HR526, that I would urge 

16 anyone listening or paying attention to this to 

17 promote, because there’s a big myth that 

18 mountaintop removal has ended or that this 

19 measure will end mountaintop removal, and it 

20 won’t. Thank you very much. 

21 MR. POWERS: Thank you. Any questions 

22 from the panel? 

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1 MS. SWEARENGIN: Hi, my name is Paula 

2 Swearengin, P-a-u-l-a, S-w-e-a-r-e-n-g-i-n. 

3 Gentlemen, I want to thank you for being here. I 

4 see the EPA as my only protection for my home. 

5 I’m a single mother in West Virginia. I have 

6 four children. Their ages are 21, 18, 16 and 12.

7 I know today that you’ve heard a lot 

8 about the importance of jobs in Appalachia, and I 

9 think that’s very important, too, because I’m a 

10 coal miner’s daughter, granddaughter, and most of 

11 my family spent their life in the coal industry.

12 But I want to praise the EPA, and why I 

13 want to do so is because I’ve watched my family 

14 suffer. I’ve watched my grandfather suffocate to 

15 death. I buried my father at 52 years old of 

16 cancer. I watched my stepfather get up every day 

17 and suffocate. And I thought I’d sacrificed 

18 enough to this industry until I started seeing 

19 them blow up the mountains that I enjoyed.

20 That is my home. I was there before the 

21 coal industry. Now our creeks are black. 

22 People’s water comes black in their taps. 

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1 So if we do not have any support from our 

2 politicians, we have the best paid politicians 

3 that the coal industry can buy. Because the 

4 people out of Appalachia are coming out of the 

5 coal fields, not part of our coal heritage. But 

6 I am a mother and I’m there to protect my 

7 children. And I have no say, so I’m depending on 

8 you. 

9 I think it’s sad that I have to beg for 

10 clean water in America. And I’m asking you to 

11 think about our economic structure, to think 

12 about an economic healthy structure, because I 

13 want my children to enjoy what I had as a child.

14 My heritage dates back before the coal 

15 industry, and I think they’ve wore out their 

16 welcome I’m not going to give them my children 

17 too. Thank you. 

18 MR. POWERS: Thank you very much. If you 

19 have written comments we’d be happy to take them. 

20 If you don’t that’s fine.

21 Our next speaker is Dennis Groce and 

22 Mariam Lindauer.

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1 MR. GROCE: My name is Dennis Gross, 

2 D-e-n-n-i-s, G-r-o-c-e. I live in the town of 

3 Northeast, Pennsylvania, which is actually near 

4 Erie, Pennsylvania. I worship at St. Peter’s 

5 Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northeast. In 

6 that congregation I help the congregation and 

7 others in the community in our responses to the 

8 many environmental challenges that face all of us 

9 every day.

10 With only a few exceptions, I do support 

11 the EPA proposal to limit carbon emissions from

12 existing power plants. My support is motivated, 

13 really by the call that I hear in my faith 

14 tradition, which is the Bible’s account in 

15 Genesis, Chapters 1 and 2.

16 That account calls us to do the very best 

17 we can to protect everything in this world. 

18 While that’s easy to say, it’s very often 

19 difficult to do. I know that many of those 

20 commenting on the EPA proposal today and 

21 elsewhere are concerned about the effect these 

22 rules will have on employment and the economy.

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1 Well, I assure you I am concerned about

2 that, too, but I don’t see it as a one or the 

3 other proposition. We certainly should take 

4 steps to address the impact of these rules on the 

5 employment and the economy. But our country is 

6 strong enough and creative enough to do both at 

7 the same time. It’s not like we can only chew 

8 gum or walk at one time.

9 So while we can do that, while addressing 

10 the economic dislocations that might result from 

11 these rules, we have to find those ways of doing 

12 that rather than splitting apart along 

13 ideological lines. My wife and I, live, as I 

14 said, near Erie, Pennsylvania. We live right on 

15 the lake, right on Lake Erie. We watch the lake 

16 every day.

17 We frequently walk the beach and kayak on 

18 the lake. We’re awed by the size, and beauty, 

19 and power of the lake. It’s one of the greatest 

20 freshwater sources in the world. 

21 We are concerned about the effect on Lake 

22 Erie of warming temperatures associated with 

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1 climate change and the release of carbon into the 

2 air. Warmer, shorter winters are known to affect 

3 the ecology of the lake. Perch and walleye are 

4 cool water species of fish that have been shown 

5 to decrease in numbers and viability after the 

6 warmer, shorter winters. Those species will be 

7 reduced in number as a result of climate change.

8 Aside from the ecological impact, this 

9 will take a toll on the recreational and 

10 commercial fishing on Lake Erie and other bodies 

11 of water. The recreational fishing, alone, is a 

12 tremendous part of the economy in our area. 

13 The warmer waters also will produce a 

14 cascade of changes in the Lake Erie ecology. As 

15 nutrients such as fertilizer wash into the warmer 

16 lake, algae growth is going to be enhanced, and 

17 it is now. When the algae ultimately dies an 

18 decays in the lake, the oxygen in the water can 

19 be depleted, which further endangers the fish and 

20 other organisms.

21 My wife and I have observed that just in 

22 the eight years that we’ve lived on the lake, the 

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1 increase in algae. 

2 Aside from our personal observations, we 

3 know, of course, that climate change has already 

4 taken its toll on the earth and its inhabitants. 

5 Droughts, intense storms, rising sea levels, 

6 decrease food supplies and increase disease are 

7 all a part of climate change.

8 While I support the proposed rule in 

9 general, I have just a couple of comments on it. 

10 I actually prefer that the EPA would strengthen 

11 the proposal before finalizing it. 

12 The Union of Concerned Scientists has 

13 released a study indicating that combining more 

14 aggressive power plant standards with strong 

15 renewable and efficiency policies could cut power 

16 sector carbon emissions by 40 percent below 2013 

17 levels by 2020, and by more than 50 percent by 

18 2030.

19 This would put the U.S. in a position to 

20 lead the world rather than just catching up, 

21 which is what we’re doing now. I ask that the 

22 EPA adopt those measures to allow those more 

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1 significant reductions in carbon emissions.

2 Last thing, you’re calling it the Clean 

3 Power Plan. I find it hard to believe that it’s 

4 clean power, really. I would suggest it might be 

5 cleaner power, and I commend you for going for 

6 that. Clean power? No, it amounts to something 

7 like green washing, I’d say. 

8 That’s my last suggestion. Thank you 

9 very much for the opportunity to speak with you 

10 today.

11 MR. POWERS: Thank you. 

12 MS. LINDAUER: My name is Miriam 

13 Lindauer, that’s M-i-r-i-a-m, L-i-n-d-a-u-e-r. I 

14 live here in Allegany County. I’m a retired 

15 computer programmer. 

16 I strongly support the proposed EPA 

17 regulations limiting carbon emissions. We need 

18 the EPA to step in and make power plant standards 

19 as strong as possible. The new rules should 

20 encourage renewable energy instead of natural 

21 gas, which may burn cleaner than coal, but which 

22 causes water, air and noise pollution during its 

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1 extraction.

2 Fossil fuel emissions are undeniably 

3 causing our planet’s atmosphere to warm, 

4 affecting the health of every living thing. 

5 I have asthma and would not wish it on 

6 anyone else, so the following fact gets my 

7 attention. According to a Stanford University 

8 study, for each increase of one degree Celsius 

9 caused by carbon dioxide, the resulting air 

10 pollution will lead annually to about a thousand 

11 additional deaths and many more cases of 

12 respiratory illness and asthma in the United 

13 States.

14 Worsening global warming will not only 

15 have terrible effects on people’s health, but 

16 will cost everyone in terms of rising sea levels, 

17 more acidic oceans, stronger storms and 

18 widespread drought.

19 A recent report by the U.S. National Park 

20 Service indicates that our national parks are 

21 being adversely affected by global warming right 

22 now.

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1 Wildfires came perilously close to 

2 Sequoia National Park in 2013, and Glacier 

3 National Park may be glacier free by 2030. 

4 It’s wishful thinking to claim that an 

5 unregulated free market will fix all of society’s 

6 problems. There is no aspect of the free market 

7 that provides an inherent profit motive for 

8 industry to limit its pollution voluntarily. 

9 This does not mean the industry is evil, it just 

10 means there’s no money in it for them.

11 The only way to stop global warming is to 

12 limit carbon pollution from all sources, burning 

13 fossil fuels to generate electricity produces 

14 almost 40 percent of carbon pollution in the 

15 United States. Since the fossil fuel industry 

16 will not voluntarily set limits, the EPA must do 

17 so. The proposed rules are a step, a small step 

18 in the right direction. 

19 Claims of job losses in coal producing 

20 areas are way overstated. Coal jobs will not 

21 disappear overnight, as it will take years to 

22 complete the transition to cleaner energy. 

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1 Furthermore, increasing renewable energy 

2 production will create more clean energy jobs. 

3 Many of those Appalachian hills that cover coal 

4 seams are perfect spots for energy generating 

5 windmills, which require a lot of maintenance by 

6 blue collar workers.

7 Installing solar panels and developing 

8 technology to conserve energy create even more 

9 jobs. There are already more blue collar solar 

10 and wind energy jobs in this country than there 

11 are coal industry jobs, and those clean jobs 

12 don’t give workers Black Lung disease.

13 One role of government is to resolve 

14 conflicts between the rights of individuals and 

15 the rights of corporations. We have conflicting 

16 interests here. The fossil fuel industry’s 

17 business model includes emitting unhealthy carbon 

18 pollutants into the air and water at no cost to 

19 them. 

20 That business model conflicts with our 

21 right to clean air and water. They use our air, 

22 water and infrastructure for free and they do not 

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1 pay the cost that their pollution causes. 

2 Who does pay the cost? People like me 

3 who have pollution caused respiratory diseases 

4 pay the cost. Government’s fighting fires in the 

5 west pay the cost. Coastal cities being slowly 

6 flooded by rising sea levels pay the cost. 

7 Future generations who will never see the 

8 glaciers that are melting way in Glacier National 

9 Park and who will never see the Giant Sequoias, 

10 which may well be incinerated by wildfires pay 

11 the cost.

12 We should not be forced to bear this cost 

13 any longer. The right of fossil fuel industries 

14 to do business as they choose ends where our 

15 lungs begin. The right to do business as they 

16 please ends when their activity threatens our 

17 right to a livable environment.

18 The government represents us, the flesh 

19 and blood breathing individuals of this nation. 

20 If the EPA does not protect our right to a 

21 healthy environment by issuing strong carbon 

22 emission rules, who will. Thank you. 

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1 MR. POWERS: The next two speakers are 

2 Alexandra Schmittlein and Susan Hoppe.

3 MS. SCHMITTLEIN: Hello. My name is 

4 Alexandra Schmittlein. I am going to read the 

5 testimony of Allen Eccleston and Linda Harris, 

6 who are not here today. 

7 My last name is S-c-h-m-i-t-t-l-e-i-n.

8 We strongly support the proposed 

9 regulations to --

10 MR. POWERS: I’m sorry, could you just 

11 tell us who you are reading for again?

12 MS. SCHMITTLEIN: Oh, sure.

13 MR. POWERS: I got behind.

14 MS. SCHMITTLEIN: Allen Eccleston, it’s 

15 E-c-c-l-e-s-t-o-n, and Linda Harris, who reside 

16 in Hadley, Massachusetts.

17 MR. POWERS: Great. Thank you. 

18 MS. SCHMITTLEIN: You’re welcome.

19 “We strongly support the proposed 

20 regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

21 With 40 percent of carbon dioxide emissions 

22 coming from the smoke stacks of coal burning 

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1 power stations, it is essential to regulate these 

2 pollutants.”

3 “Several members of our family suffer 

4 from asthma and other pulmonary ailments. It is 

5 particularly distressing for us and other we know 

6 who have no defense against these pollutants.”

7 “Until the EPA establishes these 

8 regulations and begins to require compliance, 

9 untold numbers of children and adults will suffer 

10 needlessly.”

11 “In addition to the immediate health 

12 effects, greenhouse gas emissions are negatively 

13 impacting climate. The results are more forest 

14 fires, more floods, more severe storms that 

15 threaten lives, businesses and livelihoods.”

16 “As practicing Quakers who understand 

17 that these changes affect the most vulnerable 

18 first and worst, we are actively reducing our own 

19 participation in the carbon economy, and our 

20 founding members of a voluntary carbon tax 

21 witness group in our monthly meeting.?

22 “We know more than individual action is 

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1 needed. We commend EPA for putting the 

2 regulations together and strongly back their full 

3 enforcement. Sincerely, Linda Harris and Allen 

4 Eccleston.”

5 MR. POWERS: Thank you. 

6 MS. HOPPE: My name is Dr. Susan Hoppe, 

7 H-o-p-p-e, and I strongly support the new rules 

8 but I didn’t realize I’d be able to speak, so I 

9 will be reading for Brenda Archanbo, 

10 A-r-c-h-a-n-b-o. 

11 Brenda writes, “Thank you for the 

12 opportunity to present testimony on behalf of 

13 Michigan sportsmen and sportswomen representing 

14 the great old state of Michigan.”

15 “I am here to speak up in support of the 

16 EPA’s carbon pollution standards. I am a fourth 

17 generation ice angler. I live at Black Lake in 

18 Cheboygan, Michigan in the Northern Lower 

19 Peninsula. Black Lake is the eighth largest 

20 inland lake in Michigan and is world renowned for 

21 its lake sturgeon population, a threatened 

22 species in Michigan.”

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1 “Michigan’s wildlife and natural 

2 resources are the backbone of our five billion 

3 dollar recreational tourism economy. The Great 

4 Lakes are a national treasure.”

5 “Michigan’s wildlife is as unique as the 

6 shape of its shoreline and the variety of 

7 habitats found within its borders. Whether it is 

8 a moose in the Upper Peninsula, the iconic lake 

9 sturgeon in the Northern Lower Peninsula, or our 

10 blue ribbon trout streams, wildlife helps define 

11 Michigan’s sense of place.”

12 “Our state’s history and cultural 

13 identity are inseparably linked to our wildlife 

14 and natural resources. It is what makes us pure 

15 Michigan.”

16 “Across America hunters and anglers have 

17 contributed more than 10 billion dollars to fish 

18 and wildlife conservation, and in a typical year 

19 pumps 75 billion dollars into the economy.” 

20 “We have an obligation to protect our 

21 wildlife heritage from climate change by 

22 addressing its causes, including carbon pollution 

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1 from power plants. Failing to do so will mean 

2 increasing disastrous impacts on wildlife. 

3 Climate change caused by carbon pollution is 

4 resulting in more frequent and increasingly 

5 violent extreme weather events, drought, flooding 

6 and other stressors that devastate communities, 

7 threaten public health, and destroy and degrade 

8 wildlife habitat.”

9 “Climate change isn’t just blind siding 

10 native species with habitat changes, it’s also 

11 giving a leg up to many harmful and invasive 

12 species.” 

13 “For over 40 years the Clean Air Act has 

14 made progress in reducing the threats posed by 

15 pollution. History has shown we can clean up 

16 pollution and create jobs.” It is misleading to 

17 say that enforcement of our nature’s 

18 environmental laws is bad for the economy and 

19 employment. It isn’t. We should never have to 

20 choose between a job and a healthy environment. 

21 We are entitled to both.”

22 “Americans are no less entitled to a 

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1 safe, clean environment during difficult economic 

2 times than they are in a more prosperous 

3 economy.”

4 “Safeguarding our natural resources is 

5 important to those of us who hunt, fish and spend 

6 time in the woods and on the waters, but is also 

7 a wise investment in our economic future.” 

8 “Reducing carbon pollution will help 

9 protect our longstanding investment in our 

10 outdoor heritage.”

11 Brenda, we, me, Susan, Brenda and I 

12 strongly urge the EPA, Congress and the 

13 Administration to move forward and finalize 

14 strong carbon pollution standards, ensuring our 

15 outdoor legacy for future generations. 

16 Now and in the future the EPA and other 

17 federal and state and environmental laws can help 

18 ensure that the legacy we leave our children is a 

19 clean and healthy planet. Thank you very much. 

20 MR. POWERS: Thank you. The next panel, 

21 next speakers are Michael Mabry and Kevin Sunday. 

22 Please proceed with you’re ready.

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1 MR. MABRY: Okay. This Dr. Michael 

2 Mabry, spelled M-a-b-r-y. I’m here to strongly 

3 support President Obama’s new rule on coal fired 

4 power plants. 

5 Basically coal fired power plants are the 

6 single fact that is most responsible for 

7 increased global warming. It’s responsible for 

8 40 percent of the U.S. contribution to greenhouse 

9 gases. It’s the largest domestic source of 

10 greenhouse gases.

11 On June the 2nd, 2014, President Obama 

12 proposed a rule, said he wanted to cut 30 percent 

13 of the emissions from the coal fired power plants 

14 by 2030. This is a modest but very important 

15 contribution to lowering the risk of climate 

16 change.

17 Coal fired power plants are also the 

18 cause of trouble with asthma and respiratory 

19 illnesses. It’s estimated that there be lowering 

20 of deaths from asthma and respiratory illnesses 

21 by lowering of the coal fired power plant 

22 emissions.

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1 Global warming causes droughts, more 

2 forest fires and in the next hundred years it 

3 will cause four to seven inches of sea level 

4 rise -- the increase of rate of animal 

5 extinction. 

6 The Defense Department states that global 

7 warming will cause an increased risk of 

8 population migration and conflict, increasing the 

9 risk of war. 

10 Global warming causes basically drought 

11 and crop failures. This might be one of the 

12 reasons for population migration. There will be 

13 a melting of the polar ice caps and will be the 

14 melting of the vast majority of glaciers in the 

15 next hundred years.

16 There will be a rise of approximately 

17 three degrees temperature -- air temperature if 

18 the rate of carbon pollution does not slow --

19 it’s the single largest factor contributing to 

20 greenhouses gases in the United States, so 

21 President Obama was very wise to attack the 

22 problem at the level of the coal fired power 

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1 plants.

2 In summary, I strongly support President 

3 Obama’s new rule on greenhouse gases. 

4 MR. POWER: Thank you. 

5 MR. MABRY: Thank you. 

6 MR. SUNDAY: Hi, my name is Kevin Sunday, 

7 K-e-v-i-n, S-u-n-d-a-y. I’m the Manager of 

8 Government Affairs for the Pennsylvania Chamber 

9 of Business and Industry, with the largest broad 

10 based business advocacy organization in the 

11 state.

12 Before I get started, I do want to read 

13 into the record my appreciation for EPA’s staff 

14 in holding these hearings. I’m very impressed, 

15 having formerly worked at a regulatory agency, 

16 the professionalism that your staff has shown in 

17 getting people through here in an orderly 

18 fashion, as well as the building security and 

19 local police in ensuring that everyone, no matter 

20 what they think of these rules, has the ability 

21 to exercise their First Amendment.

22 We’ve heard certainly a lot today, and 

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1 again, I appreciate the endurance you’ve shown. 

2 We’ve heard, unfortunately, little about the 

3 actual Clean Power Plan, and I’d like to bring up 

4 a few of our member’s concerns about the specific 

5 wording of the rule.

6 I would like to do so out of respect for 

7 President Obama’s ideal regulatory framework, 

8 which he outlined in an executive order in 2011, 

9 which, in part, read that the federal regulatory 

10 system must allow for public participation and 

11 the open exchange of ideas. It must identify and 

12 use the best, most innovative and least 

13 burdensome tools for achieving regulatory ends.

14 The 111(d) resource performance standard 

15 for new power plants, putting aside any question 

16 about whether or not carbon sequestration is 

17 adequately demonstrated and thus satisfies BSER, 

18 and it at least stays inside the fence. We’ve 

19 got concerns that the historical application of 

20 111(d), especially as it has the attention to 

21 112, moving outside the fence on a number of 

22 facets is a bit of a legal stretch. 

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1 One of those stretches, we think, is the 

2 state’s renewable target expectation and one of 

3 the building blocks. Pennsylvania is expected to 

4 increase its renewables by eightfold over the 

5 next 15 years, and it appears from our analysis 

6 that that happened because EPA incorporated 

7 Washington D.C.’s renewable supply mandates, even 

8 though they only actually have one -- from my 

9 reading -- power plant in the city, and it 

10 actually powers the Capital, somewhat ironically. 

11 And the renewable supply requirements are 

12 informing a renewable generation requirement, 

13 which we think is a bit perverse.

14 We do want to support the Pennsylvania 

15 DEP’s 111(d) White Paper which stays inside the 

16 fence. There’s a really crucial aspect of that, 

17 and that urges EPA to revisit and revise the new 

18 source review threshold that discourages 

19 investment into existing facilities, and that has 

20 to do with once you’re operating, your potential 

21 to emit thresholds certainly change.

22 We also would suggest EPA revisit the 

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1 expectation 70 percent of natural gas capacity 

2 gets dispatched. Our reason being in 2012 

3 natural gas prices were the lowest they’ve ever 

4 been, and dispatch did not even approach 70 

5 percent of its -- independent market monitors 

6 report about 57 percent. And given the language 

7 in EPA’s rule, expects a 121⁄2 percent increase in 

8 natural gas stock prices by the end of the 

9 decade, given that the PJM dispatches electricity 

10 on an economic basis.

11 It’s difficult for us to foresee that you 

12 get close to 70 percent dispatch out of those 

13 power plants. In fact, just this past winter in 

14 the polar vortex, what happens on the stock 

15 market when we over rely on one fuel source, and 

16 there is certainly present infrastructure and 

17 supply constraints in the natural gas market. 

18 We’re going to need more pipeline investment to 

19 satisfy that 70 percent requirement. And we have 

20 a concern that regulatory actions need to be 

21 smoothed out, particularly the waters of the U.S. 

22 rule might delay additional pipeline investment.

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1 And finally, we’ve heard that this rule 

2 affects only 40 percent -- the power plant’s 

3 contribution is 40 percent of greenhouse gases. 

4 America, as a whole, is only at 16 percent of the 

5 world’s contributions. But in fact, since 2005 

6 the power plant industry in Pennsylvania has cut 

7 their greenhouse gases by 14 percent, a very 

8 notable contribution.

9 It’s not the only reductions, points or 

10 submissions that have gone down in Pennsylvania. 

11 SO2, according to DEP is down 68 percent, NOx by 

12 about 30 percent, and VOCS by 21 percent, and 

13 that’s having a demonstrated impact on air 

14 quality with fewer and fewer ozone action days 

15 being called each year.

16 Not coincidentally over that same time 

17 we’ve seen unemployment go down to below the 

18 national average. We think given that, the 

19 present environmental regulations and competitive 

20 electricity market is having a wonderful effect 

21 on the environment and we have a strong economy 

22 too. And we would prefer to see those trends 

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1 continue. Thanks.

2 MR. POWERS: Thank you. 

3 Next up is Wanda Guthrie and David 

4 Mangold.

5 MS. GUTHRIE: Hi. My name is Wanda 

6 Guthrie. That’s W-a-n-d-a, G-u-t-h-r-i-e. My 

7 presence and testimony here this evening is to 

8 speak in support of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. 

9 I am the Environmental Justice Chair and speak on 

10 behalf of the Thomas Burton Center, the heart of 

11 peace and social justice in Pittsburgh for over 

12 40 years.

13 I’m also a member of the Friend’s 

14 Committee, a national legislation, and will speak 

15 to the timeliness of this proposed regulation. 

16 To quote ecopsychologist, Joanna Macy, 

17 “The most radical thing any of us can do at this 

18 time is to be fully present to what is happening 

19 in this world.” This means we must look straight 

20 at anthropocentric climate disruption and work 

21 together to address, regulate and remedy as many 

22 of the causes as possible while there is still 

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1 time.

2 It is this belief that brings you here, 

3 and why you are spending these long hours 

4 listening to our remarks. I know that no matter 

5 what we say here today, there will be still more 

6 and more social hysteria, and that the corporate 

7 media will be pointing fingers and putting 

8 pressure on their perception on what’s needed for 

9 the future of our planet.

10 There are those who will continue to talk 

11 about how they are going to put food on the 

12 table. They will talk about jobs, but the prices 

13 being paid or extorted from the whole of living 

14 creation are just too high.

15 This is a moral issue. Generational 

16 ethics are on the line. The poorest and most 

17 vulnerable of us that contribute the least to 

18 climate changes are the most dangerously 

19 affected.

20 The sad truth for Pennsylvanians is that 

21 coal is currently our largest energy source for 

22 power generation. The EPA will be asking 

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1 Pennsylvania to develop a plan to lower its 

2 carbon pollution to meet the proposed emission 

3 rate goal of 1,052 pounds per megawatt hour by 

4 2030. 

5 We who welcome this Clean Power Plan will 

6 work to put our energy into programs that have 

7 not been as fully supported as they can be, like 

8 solar, wind and geothermal power. 

9 Many of us affirm and support energy 

10 sources and strategies with criteria from cradle 

11 to grave that emit little or no carbon dioxide or 

12 other greenhouse gas emissions, produce infinite 

13 sources of energy, do not have negative impacts 

14 on human health and communities, are cost 

15 effective and create long term job and economic 

16 growth.

17 For these reasons we do not support 

18 nuclear energy as an option. The risks to human 

19 health, to communities, including the harmful 

20 extraction and abandoned uranium mines create 

21 negative impacts. The inability to permanently 

22 disclose of high level radioactive waste creates 

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1 harmful sacrifice areas. We also know that these 

2 are global security -- there’s a global security 

3 threat.

4 The nuclear industry’s inability to 

5 operate without government subsidies has been a 

6 continuing issue. Fossil fuels are finite and 

7 renewable energy is infinite. In fact, the 

8 International Energy Agency tells us that 

9 two-thirds of proven fossil fuel reserves must be 

10 kept in the ground to prevent potential 

11 catastrophic consequences. This includes natural 

12 gas and oil. About one-third of the total U.S. 

13 methane emissions are responsible for greenhouse 

14 gas emissions. 

15 The new unconventional gas wells are also 

16 emitting toxins like benzene, and radon, that are 

17 then sent through compressor stations and 

18 pipelines. Several studies have shown that 

19 overall, methane emissions are considerably 

20 higher than official inventories report. This 

21 policy will treat carbon the way it should be 

22 treated. It is a pollutant and is harming our 

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1 health and our planet.

2 The rule that reflects our best values to 

3 prevent premature deaths and asthma attacks by 

4 smog and other air pollutants, it will reduce the 

5 pollution that fuels climate change. Thank you 

6 for your time.

7 MR. POWERS: Thank you. Mr. Mangold?

8 MR. MANGOLD: Good evening everyone, and 

9 Administrators. My name is David Mangold, 

10 M-a-n-g-o-l-d, a concerned citizen from Randolph, 

11 Ohio. I am also a geologist. 

12 I’ve been compiling great concerns over 

13 the way our country uses energy and our 

14 resources. Concerns such as world peak oil and 

15 these current environmental issues we’re talking 

16 about here today.

17 Historically, we powered our industries 

18 at the time of the first industrial revolution by 

19 renewables, wind and water. Today we have other 

20 alternatives, geothermal, solar and others.

21 I believe in the future we can power our 

22 energy sources using most exclusively renewable 

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1 sources, some of which I’ve already cited. I’m 

2 currently particularly infatuated with 

3 hydroelectric power, which historically was known 

4 as white coal during the time of World War II, by 

5 the Milwaukee railroad. I believe we can power 

6 our transportation system electronically using 

7 electrified trains and electric cars, and use 

8 those vehicles to connect the megapolises.

9 Transportation corridors could be used to 

10 transport renewable energy from sources of 

11 production to city centers like here in 

12 Pittsburgh. And I do agree that carbon is a 

13 pollutant, and I do certainly support the current 

14 EPA rules on carbon emissions. I’ll keep mine 

15 short and to the point.

16 MR. POWERS: Thank you. I want to make 

17 a point here of thanking everybody who’s here 

18 tonight. We very much appreciate each of you who 

19 has taken the time to come out and testify or 

20 just to listen and hear more about all the 

21 different sides of this issue, which has drawn an 

22 enormous amount of attention around the country.

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1 The next two speakers are Paul Severance 

2 and Nikki Luke.

3 MR. SEVERANCE: Thank you. My name is 

4 Paul Severance, spelled S-e-v for Victor, 

5 e-r-a-n-c-e. I live in Beech Grove, Indiana. 

6 Today is my 75th birthday.

7 MR. POWERS: Happy Birthday.

8 MR. SEVERANCE: I am here instead of at 

9 home celebrating with my family because I believe 

10 that what we are about here today is of 

11 absolutely critical, critical importance. 

12 I am the co-chair of the Environmental 

13 Legacy Team at the Conscious Elders Network, 

14 which is a new national organization of elders 

15 who are deeply concerned about the world we are 

16 creating for future generations.

17 We absolutely believe that we are 

18 standing at what may be a historic juncture. Our 

19 present course of tearing carbon out of the earth 

20 as fast as possible and spewing it into the 

21 atmosphere is disastrous. We could well trigger 

22 feedback loops which will accelerate climate 

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1 change to the level at which we would no longer 

2 have a chance of preserving a planet which is 

3 consistent with human life thriving.

4 Well, this is obviously a worldwide 

5 problem. The United States has a very special 

6 responsibility. For decades we have been the 

7 world’s largest source of carbon pollution. And 

8 despite being the world’s largest economy and the 

9 world’s dominant super power, we have dragged our 

10 feet when it comes to facing the crisis that we 

11 are bringing down upon future generations.

12 So I stand here with great gratitude to 

13 President Obama, Administrator McCarthy and to 

14 the whole team of you at EPA which has worked on 

15 this proposal. In the midst of shameful, 

16 shameful congressional inaction, you have 

17 produced a truly significant step toward major 

18 reductions and CO2 emissions. It is certainly 

19 not the whole answer, but it is an essential 

20 start.

21 In concert with higher fuel efficiency 

22 standards and the standard for new power plants, 

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1 this regulation provides the first real hope of 

2 diverting our road to disaster. And the impacts 

3 of this regulation will be felt far beyond the 

4 United States.

5 Having finally taken significant action 

6 ourselves, we, as a nation, will be in the 

7 position to exert our economic and moral 

8 influence to push for real worldwide commitments 

9 while there is still time.

10 Now for the huge question about this 

11 regulation. Is it enough? Could it be made 

12 stronger by identifying more possible reductions 

13 from the use of clean energy technologies and 

14 upping the ante, and could that be done without 

15 jeopardizing the final adoption of this proposed 

16 regulation, which is what’s the most important.

17 I don’t know the answer to that question, 

18 but someday later this century people will look 

19 back at what we are doing today and say we rose 

20 to the occasion and took the steps to prevent 

21 catastrophe or we didn’t do enough.

22 So what we ask of EPA is this. Take a 

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1 look at strengthening this regulation further. 

2 Don’t miss the opportunity to do everything you 

3 can possibly do to give our great grandchildren 

4 and their children a chance for a decent life on 

5 this earth. And at the same time do not 

6 jeopardize this vitally important regulation.

7 This may sound a little over the top, but 

8 I, in tall the studying I’ve done, I truly 

9 believe this, this could well be a pivotal point 

10 in human history. You have a unique opportunity 

11 to make a historic difference in the world. How 

12 often does that come about?

13 Do the absolute best you can do for 

14 future generations. Thank you all for your 

15 dedication and your courage.

16 MR. POWER: Thank you. 

17 MS. LUKE: Good evening. My name is 

18 Nikki Luke, spelled N-i-k-k-i, last name Luke, 

19 L-u-k-e. I didn’t know I would be on the docket 

20 to speak tonight but it seems that they had 

21 openings, so I’ll just try to sketch out some of 

22 my opinions on this matter. I didn’t prepare a 

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1 very long testimony but I wanted to share my 

2 perspective and I hope that you’ll find it a 

3 compelling reason to stand in support of these 

4 regulations.

5 I grew up less than a mile from a coal 

6 fired power plant on the campus of Virginia Tech, 

7 and I remember visiting my dad’s office when I 

8 was a little girl and making shapes on the 

9 windowsill in the coal dust. 

10 It had a significant effect on the 

11 quality of our lives, living in the shadow of a 

12 smoke stack. And while it is now one of the 

13 cleanest coal fired power plants in the country, 

14 as they were forced to retrofit it, the shadow of 

15 coal has definitely significantly detracted from 

16 what Appalachia has the potential to be.

17 And despite the strong voices that say 

18 coal continues to be a vital part of our economy 

19 and a vital part of where labor is directed in 

20 the region of Appalachia, the reality is that in 

21 some ways this represents a false promise to our 

22 communities. While we are reliant on coal and 

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1 jobs from coal in some respects, in other ways 

2 they’ve continued to decline as the process of 

3 mining has restructured with little to take its 

4 place.

5 I am strongly in support of this piece of 

6 legislation because I see it as a vital 

7 commitment not only towards cleaner energy and a 

8 cleaner future for the United States but a 

9 commitment also to rural development and an 

10 alternative for the stagnant communities of coal 

11 country.

12 My interest in this topic, specifically 

13 in rural development, has actually led me into 

14 the study of agriculture where I’ve looked at 

15 some of the various and diverse impacts of 

16 climate change. Specifically in the area of land 

17 degradation and desertification as a result from 

18 increasing aridity and changing climate patterns.

19 For instance, in the United States up to 

20 54 percent of our food supply depends on 

21 irrigated agriculture, and over 60 percent of our 

22 water withdrawals, according to the United States 

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1 geological survey, go to the irrigation of our 

2 food supply.

3 I will continue to study this issue of 

4 how to make agriculture more sustainable as I 

5 continue my studies in the master’s program as a 

6 full scholar. And I hope there that I’m going to 

7 the United Kingdom where there is a strong 

8 commitment to reducing carbon emissions, one of 

9 80 percent by 2050.

10 The United States has taken a strong step 

11 in the right direction, but we could look to some 

12 of our other allies and the work that they’re 

13 doing, not only to stand up for this issue of 

14 cleaning up the environment, but taking a role of 

15 responsibility in the global scheme as well.

16 So with all of these issues on the line, 

17 looking from the very local to that of the world 

18 prospective, I think that this is a critical 

19 piece of -- a critical step for the EPA to take 

20 in supporting alternative and progressive forms 

21 of technology, beginning with mitigation of the 

22 effects of coal fired power plants and 

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1 encouraging renewable energy and sustainable 

2 rural development, which offers a forward looking 

3 future for the economy and the people of coal 

4 country. So thank you.

5 MR. POWERS: Thank you very much. The 

6 next panel is Chris west and Nick Kennedy.

7 MR. KENNEDY: Hi, my name is Nick 

8 Kennedy. I’m speaking today on behalf of Beverly 

9 Braverman. I’m the Community Advocate for the 

10 Mountain Watershed Association, which is a home 

11 of the Youghiogheny Riverkeeper and its more than 

12 1,000 members. We’re located in Fayette County, 

13 so about an hour south of here. 

14 As with so many grassroots groups, ten 

15 people sitting around a kitchen table started the 

16 Mountain Watershed Association or MWA. They 

17 opposed putting together yet -- they opposed 

18 putting yet another underground coal mine in a 

19 watershed that already suffered from more than 

20 130 mine drainage discharges.

21 These people formed MWA and developed a 

22 comprehensive restoration plan to build and 

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1 maintain treatment systems to restore Indian 

2 Creek and its many tributaries. 

3 Over the past 15 years MWA has raised 

4 more than seven million dollars to implement 

5 treatment projects and restore Indian Creek. 

6 We’d like to thank you for this opportunity to 

7 speak in support of the limits placed on carbon 

8 pollution from coal fired power plants. 

9 Hopefully this is just the beginning of strong 

10 action to reverse the deleterious impacts of 

11 using coal. 

12 Besides air pollution and health risks 

13 from burning coal, society faces ongoing 

14 degradation to our communities and streams such 

15 as acid mine drainage, total dissolved solids, 

16 and algae blooms as well as water supply lost and 

17 structural damage to homes. 

18 The long overdue switch away from coal as 

19 an energy source will greatly improve the future 

20 quality of our nation’s air and streams. 

21 MWA believes that the EPA has an 

22 important role in all environmental impacts from 

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1 coal mining, not solely CO2 air quality health 

2 issues and its contribution to global warming. 

3 Where are the TMDL’s for all those streams in the 

4 coal mining regions, and where is that long 

5 overdue enforcement of TDS limits in PA’s streams 

6 where coal mining is taking place?

7 If anything, this rule will raise the 

8 involvement of EPA to much needed oversight and 

9 enforcement of the coal industry’s impact on this 

10 country’s natural environment, it’s streams and 

11 it’s biota.

12 We strongly support reduction of carbon 

13 pollution to protect future generations and the 

14 earth’s impact form climate change. Power plants 

15 are responsible for 40 percent of the carbon 

16 pollution in the United States, our single 

17 largest source. It is time to support federal 

18 limits on carbon pollution. It is time to 

19 address climate change.

20 Research has shown that over the next 40 

21 years Pennsylvania can take the road to 100 

22 percent renewable power generation, create over 

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1 350,000 jobs in the process, and continue to save 

2 residents money on their energy bills as compared 

3 to the retentive fixation on fossil fuel. 

4 The new federal safeguard will also 

5 inspire investment in infrastructure to protect 

6 communities from climate change impacts they are 

7 already experiencing, spur the kind of innovation 

8 that will power America with clean energy in the 

9 21st century and improve resiliency and give 

10 states flexibility to implement plans that 

11 increase efficiency.

12 But I would like to say at this juncture 

13 that we are not pushing for natural gas to be the 

14 next solution. Their extraction, processing, 

15 and delivery shares a similar negative impact on 

16 the air. 

17 As already discussed, MWA has been 

18 combating the effects of acid mine drainage for 

19 over 20 years. But now to our horror, we are 

20 seeing history repeat itself with water 

21 contamination from shale drilling in our 

22 community. A switch to natural gas is not the 

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1 solution we need if we are serious about 

2 protecting the environment from all effects of 

3 power generation, not simply carbon emissions.

4 Various components of natural gas process 

5 leak methane, which is a greenhouse gas 86 times 

6 as potent as carbon dioxide over a 20 year scale 

7 according to the intergovernmental panel on 

8 climate change. Leakage above three percent is 

9 enough to negate the climate benefits of natural 

10 gas over coal. 

11 We’d like to emphasize that we would like 

12 to see a push towards increasing the supply of 

13 renewable energy, which would allow the U.S. to 

14 reduce global warming emissions. Renewable 

15 energy growth improves public health. It reduces 

16 premature mortality and lost work days. It 

17 reduces overall healthcare cost. 

18 The aggregate national economic impact 

19 associated with these health impacts of fossil 

20 fuels is between 361.7 and 886.5 billion dollars, 

21 or between 2.5 percent or six percent of the 

22 gross domestic product. 

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1 We’d like to thank you for your time and 

2 for your attention to this matter.

3 MR. POWER: Thank you. 

4 MR. WEST: Hi, my name is Chris West. I 

5 live in Forest Hills, Pennsylvania, just east of 

6 Pittsburgh. And thanks for the opportunity and 

7 thank you all for being here, it’s probably a 

8 long day for all of you, so I appreciate that.

9 So I am here definitely a hundred percent 

10 behind this plan to limit carbon pollution from 

11 power plants. As it stands right now, I think it 

12 is our -- this action is the best chance we have 

13 to slow climate change. And climate change is 

14 certainly a problem we can’t afford not doing 

15 enough on or inaction.

16 And in my opinion, this is a broad 

17 consensus, so from my circle of friends, and 

18 contacts and family, probably 90 percent, you 

19 know, feel the same way. So from my perspective, 

20 I believe that this is a broad consensus of what 

21 we want to see happen.

22 And then, you know, why focus on power 

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1 plants? They’re the largest source of carbon 

2 pollution in the U.S. And then they count for 

3 about a third of all domestic greenhouse gas 

4 emissions. And there’s limits on arsenic, 

5 mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, 

6 particle pollution. So it just makes sense to 

7 have limits on carbon.

8 And why should we act? You know the 

9 first reason is that it literally is going to 

10 save lives. So this is from EPA data. So by 

11 2030 these steps could avoid up to 6,600 

12 premature deaths, up to 150,000 asthma attacks in 

13 kids, put to 490,000 missed work or school days. 

14 And then another reason is that it will 

15 shrink electricity bills by increasing energy 

16 efficiency and reducing demand of the electricity 

17 system. And I also think this plan is very 

18 sensible because it relies and is based on what a 

19 lot of states are already doing.

20 The one thing that I would like to urge 

21 folks on is the issue of methane. That that is 

22 such a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon, 

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1 that I think we really need to look at limits on 

2 methane, or some plan, we need to have some plan 

3 to reduce that, because that is also fast 

4 tracking us on the path towards climate 

5 destruction.

6 And I will just end by saying I really 

7 applaud the EPA and President Obama for this 

8 proposed rule, I think it’s a great step. Thank 

9 you. 

10 MR. POWERS: Let me just ask our 

11 transcriber, stenographer, are you doing okay, do 

12 you need a break? You’re good? Okay. I don’t 

13 want to exhaust anybody here.

14 The next panel is Phil Smith and Rachael 

15 Martin. 

16 MS. GOLDMAN: Hi. My name is Rachael 

17 Martin Goldman, and I live here in Pittsburgh, 

18 Pennsylvania. Today, however, I will be 

19 providing testimony on behalf of Eric Orff in New 

20 Hampshire. 

21 So speaking as Eric, “My name is Eric 

22 Orff. I live in Epsom, New Hampshire. I have 

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1 been a wildlife biologist in New Hampshire for 40 

2 years working for the State Fish and Game 

3 Department until my retirement in 2007, and since 

4 shortly after my retirement as a wildlife 

5 biologist consultant to the National Wildlife 

6 Federation.”

7 “I come here today in support of the 

8 EPA’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions from 

9 coal fired power plants. New Hampshire’s moose 

10 are in a significant decline, likely caused by a 

11 warming climate. The moose population has 

12 plunged some 40 percent in just over a decade, 

13 from an estimated population of 7,500 moose to 

14 about 4,000 to 4,500 today.”

15 “Moose are an iconic figure in the 

16 Granite State and contribute significantly to our 

17 economy. Moose viewing in the state has an 

18 estimated value of over 12 million dollars 

19 annually. Folks come from around the country to 

20 see all our moose, and the economic benefits are 

21 most focused in the far north, exactly where they 

22 are needed in the rural community.”

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1 “Moose hunting also is a significant 

2 economic engine for the North Country. But as 

3 the moose numbers have dwindled, moose hunting 

4 permits have been cut back over 80 percent in 

5 just the past seven years, from 675 permits 

6 issued in 2007 to just 124 permits issued this 

7 year. This is a tremendous economic loss for 

8 hunting guides and local businesses.”

9 “There are three significant factors 

10 contributing to reduced moose numbers and all are 

11 related to a warming New Hampshire. First, as 

12 our winters have warmed and shortened over the 

13 last decades, in particular, the shorter winters 

14 has caused a huge spike in winter tick numbers 

15 which live on moose over the winter. Over 

16 100,000 winter ticks have been found on a single 

17 moose.”

18 “Most dramatic over the last decade has 

19 been a significant loss of moose calves due to 

20 the extraordinarily high winter tick numbers. 

21 Just this past winter, 22 moose calves were 

22 fitted with radio collars in mid-January, and by 

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1 the end of April 14th, 64 percent of the calves 

2 died due to the tick loads. Past studies have 

3 shown about 20 percent mortality of adults by 

4 ticks some winters.”

5 “Second, the too hot summers are causing 

6 our cow, or female moose, to feed less. Summer 

7 temperatures above 57 degrees begin to stress 

8 moose. Then they begin panting at 68 degrees, 

9 and stop feeding and lay down at 79 degrees. 

10 This has led to underweight moose numbers 

11 increasing the last five years at the biological 

12 check station each fall.”

13 “Yearling moose, first time breeders, 

14 must be at least 440 pounds to successfully bear 

15 calves the next spring. Adults two years and 

16 older typically give birth to twin calves if 

17 their fall weights are at least 550 pounds. Many 

18 of our cows have been under these weights the 

19 last few falls. So our moose cows are producing 

20 fewer calves than they did a decade ago.” 

21 “Thirdly, as our winters have warmed, 

22 there has been a big increase in deer numbers 

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1 across the central and southern parts of the 

2 state. Deer carry a brain worm that is non-fatal 

3 to deer but very fatal to moose. It appears an 

4 increase in moose brain worm is the cause of 

5 declining numbers in the southern half of the 

6 state.”

7 “It appears all factors contributing to 

8 our declining moose numbers are related to a 

9 change in climate, and it is not just New 

10 Hampshire facing declining moose numbers. From 

11 Maine to Vermont and over to Minnesota and Utah, 

12 moose numbers are down significantly this past 

13 decade. We must act on reducing carbon emissions 

14 now to keep this iconic animal on our landscape.” 

15 Thank you. 

16 MR. POWERS: Thank you very much. Could 

17 you spell Eric’s last name just for our record?

18 MS. GOLDMAN: Yeah, it’s O-r-f-f.

19 MR. POWERS: O-r-f-f, and first name was 

20 E-r-i-c?

21 MS. GOLDMAN: Yes, correct.

22 MR. POWERS: Thank you. 

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1 MR. (Phil) SMITH: Good evening, my name 

2 is Phil, P-h-i-l, Smith, S-m-i-t-h, and I am the 

3 Director of Governmental Affairs for the United 

4 Mine Workers of America.

5 As you probably know by now, more than 

6 6,000 union members and their families marched 

7 through the streets of Pittsburgh today, raising 

8 their voices in opposition to this proposed rule. 

9 Some of them, including UMWA President, Cecil 

10 Roberts, Secretary/Treasurer, Dan Kane, and the 

11 entire UMWA International Executive Board were 

12 arrested as they engaged in non-violent civil 

13 disobedience on the sidewalk outside this 

14 building.

15 All these people came here today because 

16 they have serious concerns about the affect this 

17 proposed rule will have on their lives. EPA’s 

18 own analysis of this rule acknowledges that 

19 thousands of coal miners will lose their jobs.

20 That puts their ability to provide for 

21 their family at risk, and it puts their 

22 retirement security for retired miners, their 

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1 dependents and their widows at risk. That makes 

2 them rightfully very concerned.

3 And since EPA has thus far refused to 

4 hold one of these hearings in the coal producing 

5 areas of this country, they have no choice but to 

6 come here to make their voices heard. And I 

7 assure you you have not heard their voices for 

8 the last time. 

9 If EPA does not have the courage to come 

10 to the coal fields and look the people who will 

11 be most harmed by this rule in the eye, they will 

12 keep coming to you. 

13 It is important that we put into 

14 prospective what this proposed rule does and does 

15 not do. The Clean Power Plan is and always was 

16 about taking action to reducing greenhouse gas 

17 emissions from existing sources, but will it?

18 I’ve heard some of the environmental 

19 community complain that it does not go far 

20 enough. I can understand their point if EPA’s 

21 goal it so significantly reduce global greenhouse 

22 gas emissions. This proposed rule does not do 

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1 that.

2 Indeed, it will have a fairly 

3 insignificant effect on global emissions, 

4 reducing them by about one percent. But in 

5 exchange for that one percent reduction, tens of 

6 thousands of coal miners, electrical workers, 

7 boiler makers, utility workers and railway 

8 workers will lose their jobs.

9 The pensions and healthcare retired 

10 miners earned through decades of dangerous back 

11 breaking work will be threatened if not 

12 completely eliminated. The harmful effects on 

13 their families and communities will be 

14 significant. We don’t see this as a fair trade 

15 off for us. 

16 Some say there will be other jobs created 

17 that our members can get. But where will those 

18 jobs be? What will they pay? What benefits will 

19 they have. You are asking people who earn around 

20 $27 an hour plus benefits, and believe me they 

21 earn that money working in a coal mine, to 

22 willingly give that job up, take the government’s 

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1 word for it that there will be some other job, 

2 move away from their place where their families 

3 have lived and died for generations, then get 

4 retrained and do something that will likely pay 

5 much less than they earned before with few, if 

6 any, benefits. 

7 Nor is it likely that his new job will 

8 have the protections of a union contract. How 

9 can anyone wonder why our members are upset about 

10 that prospect? 

11 Some have said the United States needs to 

12 take the lead on combating climate change with 

13 this rule. If we do it others will follow or so 

14 that line of thinking goes. But how do we know 

15 this? I am no expert in foreign affairs but I do 

16 know something about the economics of the global 

17 marketplace. 

18 The truth is that rising economic 

19 competitors like China and India have welcomed 

20 millions of what used to be American jobs to 

21 their shores in the past decades. They are able 

22 to do that be providing cheap labor and cheap 

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1 energy. They will continue to have both an 

2 abundance for decades to come and that energy is 

3 and will continue to be powered by coal no matter 

4 what we do.

5 The UMWA does not dispute the science 

6 regarding climate change. We never have and we 

7 do not today. We do not dispute the role that 

8 greenhouse gas emissions play in that. We 

9 understand that steps need to be taken to address 

10 this issue.

11 Our very real concern is that this 

12 proposed rule does not do that in a way that is 

13 fair to all -- all Americans and their families.

14 So here are my requests of you today. 

15 First, bring these hearings to the coal fields. 

16 You have a responsibility in a representative 

17 form of government to hear from those who are 

18 going to be most affected by this rule.

19 Second, go back and take a look at how 

20 you can take meaningful steps in this rule to 

21 incentives the development and application of 

22 technologies that will allow our nation to 

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1 continue to take advantage of the most abundant 

2 fuel source we have, which is coal.

3 And lastly, don’t destroy the lives of 

4 the very people who did what our nation asked of 

5 them, providing the coal that for the last 150 

6 years has energized America and provided us with 

7 the means to become the most powerful nation on 

8 earth. Please, hear their voices. Thank you. 

9 MR. POWERS: Thank you. Do we have any 

10 other cards? At the moment I think I’m out of 

11 speakers. Is there anybody here who has signed 

12 up and I didn’t get a card yet, or we will take a 

13 short break and adjourn for the moment and see 

14 who else might be interested in speaking.

15 MR. (Ian) SMITH: I was assigned to speak 

16 at a different time.

17 MR. POWERS: All right, your right on 

18 time. Perfect. Please give us your name for the 

19 record because I don’t even have it on a card.

20 MR. (Ian) SMITH: Yeah, my name is Ian 

21 Smith, I-a-n, S-m-i-t-h.

22 So I live here in Pittsburgh. I’m a 

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1 solar energy consultant for a small business, 

2 local small business, Energy Independent 

3 Solutions. I’m also an officer with the Solar 

4 Unified Network of Western Pennsylvania, a local 

5 industry and advocacy group.

6 The opinions I will share today are my 

7 own. I do not speak on behalf of these groups, 

8 but as an individual, a millennial and a 

9 renewable energy professional.

10 I would like to voice my support for the 

11 EPA’s proposed standard. I call for these 

12 regulations to be implemented without delay, and 

13 without any weakening or compromising of the 

14 standard.

15 I believe the EPA has carefully weighed 

16 the economic and technological considerations and 

17 the resulting standard finds the right balance of 

18 challenging us Americans to rise to the occasion. 

19 Without being unrealistic or inconsiderate of 

20 some of the economic realities involved with 

21 that, in fact, on the contrary I believe that the 

22 economics of the Clean Power Plan are so 

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1 overwhelmingly in our best interest as a country 

2 that we are compelled to implement this plan as 

3 quickly as possible.

4 These economic benefits come in the form 

5 of new jobs in industries, but also health costs 

6 and environmental benefits which, as we know, 

7 have real economic value as New Orleans found out 

8 with their destroyed wetlands provided no barrier 

9 to the effects of the hurricane.

10 Many have spoken today eloquently about 

11 the realities of anthropogenetic climate change, 

12 so I’m not going to focus on that. To my 

13 generation and to reasonable people everywhere, 

14 the debate is settled and it’s moved to what to 

15 do about it, and that’s well underway. 

16 I must confess even though if climate 

17 change was not a reality, if it didn’t exist or 

18 if it was a hoax, or if it was not something 

19 facing us, I don’t think my stance on this issue 

20 would change. 

21 We need to transition to clean renewable 

22 sources of energy for the simple reason that the 

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1 current energy system is not sustainable. We are 

2 going to run out at some point of fossil fuels, 

3 and we can debate about when that will occur, but 

4 I don’t think anybody would take the stand that 

5 the time to seriously develop alternatives would 

6 be when those are gone or very, very difficult to 

7 obtain. 

8 As they get more scarce and increasingly 

9 so, we’re going to go to more extreme lengths to 

10 reach those remaining reserves and that’s going 

11 to have economical social and ecological 

12 consequences, and we’re already seeing that with 

13 some of the exploring for deep sea oil and arctic 

14 sources and elsewhere.

15 So I would also go on to say even if 

16 fossil fuel extraction and burning did not 

17 pollute the air and water, even if it didn’t 

18 threaten species and biodiversity, even if it 

19 didn’t cause thousands of premature deaths, 

20 wheezing children and decades long international 

21 conflict and bloodshed, I would still be in favor 

22 of transitioning away from fossil fuels, simply 

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1 for what I said before, they’re not going to last 

2 forever. It’s a finite resource and -- but of 

3 course, we know that, you know, it does all those 

4 other things as well. And so it only makes sense 

5 to take very serious actions, and I think this 

6 EPA ruling is a good first step in that 

7 direction.

8 So I’m sorry, but the argument that the 

9 sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t 

10 always blow, I’m going to need a better one to be 

11 convinced that there isn’t a better way. I mean 

12 statements like that are insulting to the 

13 ingenuity of Americans and our ability to 

14 overcome problems. So there’s clearly 

15 substantial challenges involved in the 

16 transition, but there’s also tremendous 

17 opportunity. 

18 We can be a leader in developing the 

19 technologies that the world will use, and I 

20 believe that they will follow, because these 

21 economic realities of climate change and 

22 pollution are hitting them as well. 

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1 So and hundreds of thousands of jobs, you 

2 know, I feel for coal miners and their families, 

3 I honestly do, but I truly believe that we can do 

4 this transition in a way that includes the 

5 displaced jobs and many more jobs. 

6 So I’ll just, you know, close by saying 

7 that this is an all hands on deck effort and the 

8 transition is hiring. Thank you very much. for 

9 coming to Pittsburgh.

10 MR. POWERS: Thank you. Anybody else in 

11 the audience signed up or would like to sign up? 

12 You have an opportunity right here. Anybody here 

13 with a card? Oh, we have a card.

14 Okay, before we take any breaks we’ll 

15 hear from two more speakers, Ray Ventrone and 

16 Naomi Swerdlow.

17 MS. SWERDLOW: Hi, I’m Naomi Swerdlow and 

18 I’m giving the testimony from Rob Hogg, a state 

19 senator from District 33 in Iowa.

20 So he’s saying “Dear Administrator 

21 McCarthy, I’m writing to support the proposed 

22 carbon pollution rules. Carbon pollution is a 

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1 threat to the natural environment and American’s 

2 health and safety. It’s because rising levels of 

3 carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the 

4 atmosphere are heating the planet and changing 

5 the climate in dangerous ways.”

6 “These dangers include changes in weather 

7 and precipitation patterns that result in 

8 flooding, drought and extreme weather, changes in 

9 the ranges of plants and sex in animals is a 

10 result in the ecological disruptions. Crop loss 

11 and loss of natural resources, rising seas and 

12 ocean as an indication.”

13 “In Iowa, for example, we have now 

14 suffered 20 major presidential disaster 

15 declarations just since March, 2007. Last month, 

16 June 29th through 30th, Cedar Rapids suffered 

17 another flash flood and severe storm, which has 

18 not yet been declared a presidential disaster, 

19 but one teenager, however, was killed, 

20 infrastructure was damaged, houses were ruined 

21 and hundreds of vehicles were destroyed.”

22 “Over the last 25 years our state has 

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1 suffered over 20 billion dollars in damage from 

2 floods alone. In 2008 Cedar Rapids suffered an 

3 unprecedented flood from the Cedar River, that’s 

4 more than 10 feet higher than any previous flood. 

5 It was the most costly flood in state history at 

6 five billion dollars for a city of 125,000, or 

7 $40,000 of damage per resident.”

8 “These type disasters cause real cost and 

9 real consequences for real people, including the 

10 emotional heartache and economic hardship.”

11 “In addition to flooding and storms, Iowa 

12 has also faced significant losses from drought in 

13 2012, and Iowans continue to face ongoing losses 

14 from the dramatic decline of any species like 

15 pheasants and the increasing ecological 

16 disruptions of invasive pests.”

17 “These losses are just the start of an 

18 era of climate disasters unless we take action. 

19 In an open letter to the United States Senate on 

20 October 21st, 2009 America’s leading scientists 

21 warned us that the severity of climate change 

22 impacts is expected to increase substantially in 

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1 the coming decades.”

2 “The carbon pollution rules are a central 

3 step to being to limit the future cause of 

4 climate related disasters. No one set out to 

5 cause the climate problem, but all Americans have 

6 the responsibility to recognize it and do our 

7 part to help stop it. Individual Americans 

8 cannot do it alone. We urgently need our 

9 government to adopt carbon pollution rules to 

10 help slow down and eventually stop and reverse 

11 the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.”

12 “The proposed rules state significant 

13 flexibility and how to meet the carbon pollution 

14 standards. That makes sense because different 

15 solutions will work best in different states. 

16 What is clear if that many climate solutions, 

17 such as energy conservation, energy efficiency 

18 demand management, co-generation, green 

19 buildings, wind, solar and other renewable energy 

20 sources.”

21 “Work for our economy by creating jobs 

22 and saving money on fossil fuels. These climate 

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1 solutions also work for our health by reducing 

2 pollution. These solutions are already at work 

3 in Iowa and across America.”

4 “Some people are concerned that the 

5 carbon pollution rules do not go far enough or 

6 that the carbon pollution rules by themselves 

7 will not be effective. These concerns fail to 

8 recognize that the carbon pollution rules are not 

9 the only actions Americans are taking to fight 

10 climate change.”

11 “For the fight against climate change to 

12 be effective, carbon pollution rules are 

13 absolutely necessary, but they are only one of 

14 thousands of actions Americans can take 

15 individually and as a country to safeguard our 

16 people and our property from the start of climate 

17 change and to achieve long term sustainability. 

18 It is time for a climate action. It is time to 

19 adopt the carbon pollution rules.”

20 “And then sincerely, State Senator Rob,”

21 H-o-g-g -- “Hogg, from District 33.”

22 MR. POWERS: Thank you. And he was from 

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1 Iowa?

2 MS. SWERDLOW: Yes.

3 MR. POWERS: Iowa State Senator, Rob Hogg, 

4 H-o-g-g?

5 MS. SWERDLOW: Yes.

6 MS. POWERS: I got that right, great.

7 COURT REPORTER: Could you state your 

8 name?

9 MS. SWERDLOW: Oh, I am Naomi Swerdlow 

10 and the last is S-w-e-r-d-l-o-w.

11 COURT REPORTER: Thank you. 

12 MS. SWERDLOW: You’re welcome.

13 MR. POWERS: Thank you. Mr. Ventrone?

14 MR. VENTRONE: Thank you. My name is 

15 Raymond C. Ventrone. I’m the business manager 

16 for the Boiler makers Local 154 here in 

17 Pittsburgh. I’m here today because I’m concerned 

18 about the loss of jobs due to the EPA’s proposed 

19 Clean Power Plan.

20 The EPA reports that the reduction of CO2 

21 emissions under the Clean Power Plan is 

22 equivalent to a 30 percent cut from the 2005 

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1 emissions, however, the EPA’s proposal gives no 

2 credit to the states that already have reduced 

3 their CO2 emissions due to market drive forces 

4 such as increased natural gas use, the retirement 

5 of older coal generating plants and construction 

6 of new nuclear generation.

7 Since 2005 CO2 emissions from all fossil 

8 fuel plants have decreased by 13 percent. Many 

9 states highly dependent on coal based generation 

10 have already achieved significant emission 

11 reductions, but still face the additional burden 

12 of further reducing the CO2 emissions on the 

13 short time table set by the EPA’s proposed rule.

14 We recognize that the states will have 

15 flexibility in developing the measures to achieve 

16 the CO2 emission reduction goals called for by 

17 the Clean Power Plan. However the stringency of 

18 the state reduction goals will nonetheless have 

19 the effect of dictating for the first time how 

20 states regulate the generation use of energy.

21 EPA projects that the proposed CO2 

22 reductions would reduce U.S. coal production for 

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1 electric generation by 35 percent from 2009 

2 levels by the year 2020, with a comparable 

3 reduction of coal based electric generation. 

4 Even larger regional coal production reductions 

5 are projected by 2020 for Appalachia, a 63 

6 percent reduction in the west, a 47 percent 

7 reduction.

8 The EPA also projects that this rule will 

9 cause the loss of 41 to 49 percent gigawatts of 

10 coal generating capacity by 2020. These 

11 retirements are in addition to the 92 gigawatts 

12 of coal capacity that the EPA is already 

13 projecting will shut down between 2012 and 2020, 

14 due in large part to compliance with the 2012 

15 mercury and air toxic rules.

16 We believe that losing around 130 

17 gigawatts of baseload coal capacity, nearly 40 

18 percent of the nation’s coal generation fleet in 

19 2012 raises serious concerns about the future 

20 reliability of our electric power supplies.

21 Our reliability concerns will no doubt 

22 become even more urgent as existing baseload 

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1 nuclear units begin to retire upon the expiration 

2 of their already extended NRC operating licenses.

3 Our preliminary estimates of the job 

4 impacts of the EPA’s proposed clean power rule 

5 indicate the potential loss of 52,000 permanent 

6 direct jobs by 2020 in the utility, oil and coal 

7 sectors due to power plant retirements, and the 

8 loss of 167,000 total direct and indirect jobs. 

9 These direct jobs are all highly skilled 

10 high paying jobs typically in rural communities 

11 without opportunities for comparable employment. 

12 these impacts do not consider any of the job 

13 losses associated with the closure of plants due 

14 to the MAT rule and other factors. 

15 EPA’s proposal for increasing the 

16 dispatch of natural gas combines cycle units in 

17 addition to the 40 gigawatts of new natural gas 

18 combined cycle capacity that the EPA projects to 

19 come online from 2020 to 2030 will lead to 

20 significant increases in natural gas prices, well 

21 above EPA’s projections.

22 These price increases will be further 

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1 amplified by LNG exports. Independent analysts 

2 project the utility gas demand may rise threefold 

3 above the EPA’s forecast. Consumers and energy 

4 intensive industries will bear the brunt of these 

5 gas price increases.

6 We have several recommendations about 

7 revisions to the Clean Air Power Plan. The plan 

8 should provide states with credit for prior CO2 

9 reductions as option towards meeting a reasonable 

10 national target for reducing CO2 emissions 

11 through the electric power sector.

12 The EPA’s compliance timetable is 

13 unrealistic and unachievable, even with multiyear

14 compliance average toward the interim and final 

15 targets.

16 The initial reduction program should be 

17 delayed by several years to allow states and 

18 affected sources adequate time to prepare and 

19 submit state plans, and to structure an implement 

20 compliance strategies in the most flexible least 

21 cost manner.

22 The EPA’s proposals for major expansions 

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1 of state energy efficiency, renewable energy 

2 programs interfere with traditional state 

3 authority and energy planning and appear to be 

4 well beyond the agency’s authority under the 

5 Clean Air Act.

6 The supreme court’s recent decision on 

7 the GHG permitting the rule contains strong 

8 cautionary language that the court will take a 

9 skeptical view of an overly expansive 

10 interpretation of the EPA’s authority to regulate 

11 greenhouse gases.

12 We believe that the agency should 

13 reconsider the proposed rule’s building block 

14 approach to set state CO2 emissions reduction 

15 goals based on end use energy efficiency. 

16 Increased use of natural gas and renewable energy 

17 as well as other beyond the fence emission 

18 reduction strategies. Rather, we urge the EPA to 

19 focus the rule only on options for reducing 

20 emissions within the planned fenceline. 

21 The proposed six percent efficiency 

22 improvement for existing coal units is a step in 

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1 the right direction, but we are doubtful that all 

2 these investments would ever be made, given the 

3 rule’s negative impact on coal generation and new 

4 source review permitting constraints.

5 Finally, we believe that the rule is 

6 premature, since we do not know the extent to 

7 which other nations, particularly large 

8 developing countries will be willing to commit to 

9 truly global program greenhouse as reductions. 

10 We cannot go it alone and expect that our 

11 actions will have any meaningful climate impact 

12 in a world that we share. Economy that is using 

13 more coal and other fossil fuels every day, 

14 developing nations already emit more CO2 than 

15 advanced industrial nations, and the Department 

16 of Energy projects that their share of the global 

17 emissions will grow steadily.

18 And I’d also like to add that I was born 

19 and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on top of 

20 Mount Washington, and as a young kid, I watched 

21 the change in Pittsburgh. Not only from the 

22 steel mills closing, but from the power 

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1 generation that was along the rivers, the 

2 cleanup, and I experienced it from a 

3 sixteen-year-old kid. I started boiler making at 

4 sixteen years old. I’ve been in this industry 

5 for 40 years. I just started my 40th year, and 

6 I’m the head of this boiler maker union, and 

7 we’ve cleaned the air up. We know what we’ve 

8 done. 

9 All the new technology, we know that 

10 technology is coming, the carbon capture and 

11 sequestration is there, but we feel that the EPA, 

12 the President, they have to give us time. They 

13 have to give this industry time, and we feel that 

14 we need to be on an even playing field. And we 

15 also feel that this should be in the hands of the 

16 President and the Congress and the Senate, not 

17 the EPA. And that’s all I have to say.

18 MR. POWER: Thank you. I actually have 

19 one question and I apologize, we haven’t asked 

20 anybody any questions, but you raised the time 

21 aspect. One thing we’ve heard about is -- sort 

22 of two parts to that. One is how much time 

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1 states need to get a plan together, and you 

2 mentioned that. And then there’s also when --

3 you know, when do we need to show -- what’s the 

4 target date? I think we thought 2030 was 

5 fairly -- 2030 was fairly out there. Do you guys 

6 have a view of what you would replace it with for 

7 time?

8 MR. VENTRONE: It’s really, it’s not the 

9 time -- it’s not the 2030 timetable, it’s that 

10 they’re saying 30 percent. We’ve already --

11 Pennsylvania has already reduced from 2005 until 

12 now, 13 percent. If we reduce another 30 

13 percent, that’s 43 percent. Put us on the even 

14 playing field. Give us the credit for the 13 

15 percent that we’ve already reduced from 2005 

16 until present. If they’re going to go with this 

17 rule, give us the credit for what we’ve done is 

18 what we’re saying. But we don’t want the rule at 

19 all.

20 MR. POWERS: Yeah. Yeah, okay. Thank 

21 you very much. 

22 MR. FELLNER: I have one follow-up 

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1 question. The six percent reduction in the heat 

2 rate, you mentioned new source review and the 

3 whether -- but from a practical standpoint, do 

4 you think six percent is an achievable number 

5 outside of, you know, the other constraints that 

6 you mentioned or is that --

7 MR. VENTRONE: Yeah.

8 MR. FELLNER: Okay.

9 MR. VENTRONE: Yeah.

10 MR. FELLNER: Okay.

11 MR. POWERS: Than you both

12 COURT REPORTER: Can I get your last 

13 name?

14 MR. VENTRONE: Ventrone.

15 COURT REPORTER: Can you spell it?

16 MR. VENTRONE: V, as in Victor, 

17 e-n-t-r-o-n-e.

18 COURT REPORTER: Thank you. 

19 MR. VENTRONE: Thank you. 

20 MR. POWERS: Any other speakers? I 

21 appear to be out of cards once again. I have 

22 about 7:36. Why don’t we adjourn for about ten 

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1 minutes, till about quarter of eight and we’ll 

2 check back and see if anybody still wishes to 

3 speak. I think we’ll -- if we don’t have anybody 

4 else somewhere between a quarter of eight and 

5 eight we’ll close at eight. We’ll close at eight 

6 if no one else comes. Thank you. 

7 [Recess from 7:37 to 7:59 p.m.]

8 MR. POWERS: Could I have everybody’s 

9 attention in the room, please. It is now 8:00 by 

10 my watch. We have looked to see if anybody else 

11 would like to speak. Seeing no one and the 

12 lights dimming, we are going to declare the 

13 hearing closed for today. We will welcome people 

14 for tomorrow’s session at 9:00 tomorrow morning 

15 but for today the hearing is closed. Thank you 

16 all for coming.

17 [Hearing concluded at 8:00 p.m.]

18

19

20

21

22

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