Travis Madsen

Senior Program Manager, Global Warming Solutions Environment America 44 Winter Street, 4 th Floor Boston, MA 02108 travismadsen@environmentamerica.org 

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ENVIRONMENT 

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Testimony in Support of the Clean Power Plan - Denver - July 29, 2014 Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Travis Madsen. I am the Senior Program Manager for Global Warming Solutions at Environment America. I am here on behalf of our 29 state organizations and our more than one million members and supporters across the country. We believe that the Clean Power Plan is a vital step, and we support the finalization of the strongest possible plan to'climate-altering carbon pollution from power plants. We truly appreciate President Obama's and EPA's leadership in putting this proposal forward.
The urgent need to act on global warming is not in doubt. Humans have released more than half a trillion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and this has contributed to rising temperatures.' According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, greenhouse gases likely caused global surface warming of between 0.5° and 1.3°C between 1951 and 2010. 2 From accelerating sea-level rise, to stronger hurricanes, to more devastating downpours, to extended periods of drought, global warming is already having an impact on states all across the country. For instance:

• Oceans are rising. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, Sandy-scale coastal flooding is twice as likely now as it was in 1950 because of warming-driven sea-level rise.' If we stay on our current course, scientists predict that the planet may warm by up to 11° Fahrenheit by the end of the century, causing sea levels to rise between two and six feet — which would submerge thousands of miles of coastline and displace coastal communities around the world.`' According to the World Bank, Miami, New York, New Orleans, Tampa and Boston stand to be hit the hardest of U.S. cities, and global flood losses are expected to rise tenfold, to over $60 billion annually, by 2050. 5

• Extreme downpours are becoming more frequent and more extreme. For example, in September 2013, devastating floods swept through cities and towns across Colorado, causing an estimated $2 billion in damages, damaging more than 17,000 homes and destroying more than 1,600, and killing at least eight people.' Scientists expect more of our rainfall to come in extreme events as temperatures rise.

• Dry areas are becoming drier. Heat waves are striking more often and more powerfully, with particularly devastating consequences for areas already prone to drought.' In 2012, a catastrophic drought, exacerbated by near-record heat, withered crops across the country; economists estimated losses at $77 billion. 8 Changing snowpack will exacerbate this impact — Without action to slow warming, for example, California's Sierra Nevada could lose 90 percent of its winter snowpack by the end of the century. 9

• Wildfire season is longer. According to the head of the U.S. Forest Service, global warming has already lengthened the fire season by two months and has made it easier for large fires to spread more quickly and be more destructive. w

The annual number of large wildfires has increased by more than 75 percent since the 1970s. 11 Without action, University of Illinois climate experts predict that the annual acreage lost to wildfires may double by 2043. 12
I'm originally from here in Colorado, and one of the things I notice every time I go into the mountains is how much of our forests have been ravaged by bark beetles. The forests don't look the same as when I was a kid. It is absolutely clear to me that unless we act now to reduce the pollution fueling global warming — most importantly carbon dioxide — things will be much worse for our children, and we won't be able to turn back.As the world's largest economy, the nation responsible for more of the carbon pollution in the atmosphere than any

other, and a center for clean energy technology and research, the United States has a responsibility to lead the world in tackling the problem of global warming. To do our part to limit warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius — and leverage the leadership we need to compel other countries to act —the United States must reduce its global warming pollution at least 80 percent by mid-century.
Power plants are the largest single source of U.S. carbon pollution. Our recent report America's Dirtiest Power Plants found that the 50 dirtiest power plants emit more carbon each year than all but 5 other countries. While we must move quickly to limit carbon from all sources, power plants are our best opportunity in the near term to achieve dramatic reductions in carbon. Fortunately, the solutions to global warming are at our fingertips. We have the technology to dramatically reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by using energy more efficiently and generating more power from truly clean sources, such as the wind and the sun. Environment America applauds EPA for responding to the urgent need to protect public health and our children's future by reigning in unlimited carbon pollution through the Clean Power Plan. But given the scope of the problem, and the urgent need to act, we can and must do better.
The most important thing EPA could do to improve the Clean Power Plan is to strengthen the targets for reducing emissions. EPA should adjust the formulas for setting the targets so that they more fully capture the vast potential for clean energy resources like wind, "solar, and energy efficiency —to reduce the carbon footprint of the U.S. power fleet. These tools are the best we have available to displace polluting fossil fuels. And every state has much more potential to capture clean energy resources and to do so at low cost.
EPA should adopt a better approach to estimating the growth potential for renewable energy and adopt stronger targets that more accurately reflect that potential. EPA should ground this assessment based not on what some states have already done, but instead based on what states can do beyond the steps they've already taken. For example, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory has found that renewable energy technologies available now could supply 80 percent of U.S. electricity in 2050, while meeting demand every hour of the year in every region of the country, 13
Second, EPA should increase the contribution of energy efficiency to the overall target with more ambitious assessments of what is possible. For example, the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy estimates that by mid-century, we could reduce overall energy consumption by 40 to 60 percent even as our economy grows. Such an investment would dramatically reduce carbon pollution — while creating almost two million jobs and saving consumers an average of $400 billion per year. 14
By increasing the role of clean energy technologies in the formulas establishing state targets, EPA can increase the impact of the Clean Power Plan such that it will reduce emissions 35 to 40 percent below 2005 emissions by 2020.
We can build a future for future generations in which all our electricity can come from the wind that blows over our fields and off our coasts and the sun that shines on our rooftops every day. Our homes and buildings could be so efficient that with a solar panel on top, they produce more energy than they use.
That's a future that Americans deserve, and that's the future that the Clean Power Plan has the potential to take us one step closer toward. Thank you for your time.NOTES

1 David Biello, "How Much Is Too Much? Estimating Greenhouse Gas Emissions," Scientific American, 29 April 2009. 2 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Working Group I, Fifth Assessment Report, Approved Summary for Policymakers, 27 September 2013. 3 http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2013/20130905-extremeweatherandclimateevents.html 4 Martin Vermeer and Stefan Rahmstorf, "Global Sea Level Linked to Global Temperature," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(51): 21527-21532, 2009, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0907765106. 5 Stephane Hallegatte et al., "Future flood losses in major coastal cities," Nature Climate Change 3: 802-806 (2013) and The World Bank, "Which Coastal Cities Are at Highest Risk of Damaging Floods? New Study Crunches the Numbers," News, 19 August 2013. 6 Keith Coffman, "Property Losses from Colorado Flood Projected at About $2 Billion, Reuters, 19 September 2013. 7 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Working Group I, Fifth Assessment Report, Approved Summary for Policymakers, 27 September 2013. 8 Judy Keen, "Midwest Drought Belt: A Changed World Emerges," USA Today, 20 September 2012. 9 

### http://meteora.ucsd.eduicap/pdffiles/CA_climate_Scenarios.pdf to Suzanne Goldenberg, "Climate Change Causing US Wildfire Season to Last Longer, Congress Told," The Guardian, 4 June 2013. 11 http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and jmpacts/impacts/climate-change-development-patterns-wildfire-costs.html 12 Melody Kramer, "Why Big, Intense Wildfires Are the New Normal," National Geographic, 28 August 2013. 13 National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). 2012. Renewable electricity futures study. NREL/TP-6A20-52409. Golden, CO. Online at http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/refutures/ 

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