Good Evening.

My nam.e is Tom Quinn I am a resident of Washington DC and the proud parent of 3 and 7 year old boys. I am not spending the evening with them tonight because I believe it is more important to be here testifying in favor of the EPA's proposed Clean Power Plan. The signs of Global Warming are unmistakable and indisputable — just yesterday National Geographic Photographer Paul Nicklen,posted on Facebook' that for the first time in 20 years of his summer visits there is no sea ice in the waters around Spitsbergen Island which is situated between the Greenland Sea and the Arctic Ocean and that it is possible within the next few years the Arctic Ocean could be completely free of sea ice during the summer months and last month NOAA issued a report 2 detailing expected increases in flooding in 45 US cities as a result of rising sea levels. But here at home summers are getting hotter, winters milder and hurricanes large enough to impact a northern inland city like Washington DC with widespread power outages and significant property damage are becoming annual events. The United States is currently the greatest contributor to global warming gasses and although some utter complaints about the unfairness of the burden to lead on this issue I consider it an opportunity for the United States to take the lead on this issue both morally and economically. Currently US power plants account for 40% of our Nation's total carbon pollution and though as a nation we have made great strides in regulating many of the dangerous pollutants from our power plants like mercury, lead and arsenic the United States must step up and also regulate carbon emissions from those same plants. While many are lamenting the economic shifts and costs that such changes may necessitate particularly as old and inefficient coal fired power plants are

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2 http•//tidesandcurrents noaa gov/publications/NOAA Technical Report NOS COOPS 073.pdfeither upgraded or taken off line to meet new carbon standards these changes

are necessary and overdue. Shifting to newer energy sources, particularly renewable sources like wind and solar, will lead to a new wave of construction of these means of harnessing alternative energy sources which will by necessity be accompanied by a new workforce to build and manage that infrastructure. But there are two other important reasons for making this switch. Most importantly the new regulations will force all older power plants to either run cleaner or be shut down. According to a 2012 report from the NAACP 3 older coal fired power plants are overwhelming located in and near poorer communities of color. As a parent it breaks my heart that through no fault of their own less fortunate children are forced to grow up in communities with poorer air quality and higher rates of asthma simply because we don't have the courage as a country to require that our electricity be sourced from cleaner and lower carbon emitting power sources. But this is an important segue to perhaps the most important reason why the BPA should embrace the Clean Power Plan and that is because the United States has a responsibility to lead — because we are the world's largest economy, because we are the world's largest polluter and most importantly because if we don't lead then no one else will. And that is why I am disappointed that the proposed plan requires the least improvement from the most polluting states. It is great that the plan requires even states that have already made great strides in improving their power sources and carbon emissions to improve further but it is equally disheartening that states that have done the least are asked to do the least in this proposal 4 . While it may make political sense to expect the least from more conservative coal dependent states it does not make policy or fiscal

3 lrttp://naacn.3cdn.nct/572d5c97907700910c 1 ykm6bi00.pdf

4 http://www.washingtonpost.com/bloi4s/wonkblog/wp/2014/07/16/the-epas-carbon-plan-asks-the-leastfrom-states-that-poll ute -the- most/sense to hold them to a lower standard and it means that this proposal will

not go as far is it possibly could and of course it also forces the residents of these same states to continue living with the local pollution associated with dirtier and older power sources. For the above reasons I strongly encourage you to not only implement the plan as proposed but to extend the same standards to all states because all of our citizens deserve cleaner air and the opportunity to contribute to a better world. Thank you again for your time. Tom Quinn 5322 41 St Street NW Washington DC 20015