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1 Environmental Protection Agency 

2 

3 

4 

5 Public Meeting on 

6 Clean Power Plan 

7 Proposed Federal Plan and Model Rules 

8 Day 2 

9 9:31 a.m. to 5:01 p.m. 

10 Friday, November 13, 2015 

11 

12 November 12-13, 2015 

13 

14 William S. Moorhead Federal Building 

15 Room 1310 

16 1000 Liberty Avenue 

17 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15222 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 
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1 EPA Panel for Morning Session: 

2 MIKE KOERBER, Hearing officer; and 

3 Associate Director for Policy, 

4 Office of Air and Radiation, 

5 Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 

6 MEG VICTOR, Office of Air and Radiation, 

7 Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 

8 BRIAN KEAVENY, Office of Air and Radiation, 

9 Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 

10 MICHAEL GORDON, EPA Regional Office, 

11 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 

12 

13 EPA Panel for Afternoon Session: 

14 DAVID CAMPBELL, Chair, EPA 

15 EMILY LINN 

16 ROBERT STOLTZFUS 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 
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1 C O N T E N T S 

2 PAGE 

3 ALEX WALLACH, Pittsburgh United 5 

4 WALTER MASTROPAOLO, Resident of Pittsburgh 10 

5 RUSSELL ZERBO 11 

6 DR. MICHAEL GOODHART, Pittsburgh350.org 16 

7 FRED KRAYBILL, Part Owner and Manager, 

8 Thomas Boulevard Group, Pittsburgh 24 

9 BRIAN COHEN, Photographer 29 

10 RACHEL NEFFSHADE, Resident of Pittsburgh 33 

11 KEVIN PANG, Student, University of Pittsburgh 36 

12 COURT GOULD, Executive Director, 

13 Sustainable Pittsburgh 39 

14 JODY HANDLEY, Resident of Pittsburgh 47 

15 ERIC CASTEEL 55 

16 MIKE BARRY, Founder, Solar Land Solutions 63 

17 CASSI STEENBLOK, Resident of Pittsburgh; and 

18 Program Organizer, Clean Water Action 69 

19 MARIAN LUISI, Resident of Pittsburgh and 

20 Member of Green for All 73 

21 WILL BITTINGER 83 

22 
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1 C O N T E N T S 

2 PAGE 

3 SARAH SANFILIPPO, 

4 Women for a Healthy Environment 89 

5 DR. STANLEY J. KABALA 95 

6 JENNIFER MYERS, Resident of Pittsburgh 101 

7 HEATHER SAGE, Resident of Pittsburgh 105 

8 JOHN HORCHNER, Resident of Pittsburgh 108 

9 KACY McGILL, University of Pittsburgh 112 

10 CAROLYN RUMRILL, University of Pittsburgh 116 

11 ALEXANDRA STASH, University of Pittsburgh 119 

12 SHANNON CONNORS, University of Pittsburgh 121 

13 ED GOOD, Utility Workers Union of America 124 

14 BRITTANY FAULKNER, University of Pittsburgh 130 

15 ANGELA WILEY, Resident of Pittsburgh 133 

16 JORDAN ROMANUS 137 

17 ANDREW BUTCHER, Owner and Founder, GTECH 139 

18 JESSICA SCHATZ, University of Pittsburgh 143 

19 

20 

21 

22 
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S 

2 MR. KOERBER: Mr. Wallach, thank you 

3 for coming today. My name is Mike Koerber. I'll 

4 be the hearing officer for this morning's session 

5 on EPA's proposed rules dealing with the Clean 

6 Power Plan. 

7 I'm going to spare the one audience or 

8 two audience members my long introduction and 

9 just note that we're here -- we are here to hear 

10 from you, to listen to your comments. For your 

11 convenience, we have a timer light at the front 

12 table. You have 5 minutes to speak. Given how 

13 few people are here, if you run over a little 

14 bit, no problem. When the light changes from 

15 green to yellow, it means you have about 1 minute 

16 left. When it turns red, then you're at your 

17 5-minute limit. 

18 So, again, we're here to listen to you. 

19 You'll be our first speaker, and I'll call Mr. 

20 Alex Wallach. 

21 MR. WALLACH: Good morning. Thanks for 

22 having me. My name is Alex Wallach, 
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1 W-a-l-l-a-c-h, and I am here representing 

2 Pittsburgh United. 

3 We are a coalition of community, faith, 

4 labor, and environmental organizations that work 

5 together to ensure our communities here in 

6 Pittsburgh and across the region benefit from 

7 economic development and that we raise living 

8 standards for working people. 

9 Our members range from small 

10 environmental non-profits, like the Group Against 

11 Smog and Pollution to Action United, which 

12 organizes people in low-income communities, to 

13 the service employees, International Union 32BJ, 

14 which represents over 100,000 janitors, security 

15 guards, and other property service workers along 

16 the entire East Coast. 

17 And I'm here today to say that our 

18 members stand united in their support of a strong 

19 Clean Power Plan that reduces greenhouse gas 

20 emissions, loosens the air pollution chokehold on 

21 working families' lives, and supports a new 

22 energy economy. 
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1 Our members live daily with the 

2 consequences of breathing hazardously dirty air 

3 from nearby power plants. These members are 

4 concentrated in low-income communities across the 

5 region and are largely communities of color. 

6 Our members also live daily with a 

7 service sector economy, with minimum wage jobs, 

8 little voice at work, and the threat of being 

9 fired at any time. And they deeply understand 

10 the need to create a new economy that works for 

11 everyone, and by everyone, we mean working 

12 people, our communities, and our planet. 

13 We firmly believe that we cannot be 

14 driven by politicians and powerful corporations 

15 that prioritize their pocketbooks at the expense 

16 of our communities, and we reject the false 

17 choice between a healthy economy and a healthy 

18 environment. Our communities can and must have 

19 both. We believe that the economy can thrive 

20 when we tackle dangerous pollution, but that we 

21 also must ensure that all workers, especially 

22 those in industries that will be directly 
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1 impacted by the Clean Power Plan, be given strong 

2 support to a transition into family-sustaining 

3 jobs because these workers in coal plants and 

4 industries directly impacted by the Clean Power 

5 Plan are also those that stood together to create 

6 strong union, family-sustaining jobs, and we need 

7 to be able to provide transition support to 

8 ensure that the new economy that's created and 

9 hopefully supported by a strong Clean Power Plan 

10 encourages that same style of job. 

11 So thank you for having us here or having 

12 me here today. Thank you, my friend in the 

13 audience for listening. I guess I -- I don't 

14 know. If you have questions, we can chat. 

15 MR. KOERBER: Questions from any of the 

16 panelists? 

17 And I should introduce my fellow 

18 panelists to you. I'm with EPA's Air 

19 Headquarters Office in North Carolina. Joining 

20 me on the panel are Brian Keaveny, also with 

21 EPA's Air Headquarters Office in North Carolina, 

22 and Meg Victor with EPA's Air Headquarters Office 
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1 in Washington, D.C., and finally, Michael Gordon 

2 who is with EPA's Regional Air Office in 

3 Philadelphia. 

4 MR. WALLACH: Well, thanks for coming to 

5 Pittsburgh. 

6 MR. KOERBER: Thank you. Thanks for 

7 being here. 

8 If there are no other speakers, we'll go 

9 on recess. 

10 [Recess taken from 9:16 to 9:32 a.m.] 

11 MR. KOERBER: Good morning, sir. Thank 

12 you for being here. You can hand the court 

13 reporter. That will make his job a little bit 

14 easier. 

15 And, sir, if you'd like to have a seat at 

16 the table. Good morning, Mr. Mastropaolo. 

17 Welcome to our public hearing on EPA's proposed 

18 federal plan for the Clean Power Plan. 

19 Joining me on the panel, we have Brian 

20 Keaveny, Meg Victor, and Michael Gordon. My name 

21 is Mike Koerber. I'm the hearing officer. We're 

22 all from EPA Headquarters or EPA Regional 
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1 Offices, so thank you for being here today. 

2 I'll reopen the session, and feel free to 

3 begin when you're ready. 

4 MR. MASTROPAOLO: Okay. First of all, 

5 thank you for the excellent pronunciation of my 

6 name. I'm Walter Mastropaolo. I'm also speaking 

7 for my wife Eva Mastropaolo. We reside at 460 

8 Austin Avenue in Pittsburgh. She read these 

9 comments and agree with them also. 

10 My wife, Eva, and I strongly support the 

11 Clean Power Plan. Our comments to improve the 

12 plan are the following. The justification for 

13 the plan should emphasize more the external costs 

14 of power using fossil fuels. Using coal as an 

15 example, a 2011 Harvard study estimates these 

16 external costs to be $175 billion to $500 billion 

17 annually for the United States. 

18 An analysis by West Virginia University 

19 of the cost-benefit ratio for the coal industry 

20 in West Virginia estimates the total economic 

21 benefit of the coal industry to the state to be 

22 $8.1 billion, but the health-related cost alone 
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1 to the state is $18.6 billion to $84.5 billion. 

2 These studies are summarized and 

3 referenced on my written comments. It is clear 

4 from these and other analyses that fossil fuels 

5 have been and continue to be heavily subsidized 

6 through these external costs. We urge that this 

7 point should be strongly emphasized in the 

8 justification for the plan. 

9 In addition, these costs are incurred 

10 continuously as long as the fossil fuels are used 

11 for power. In contrast, the minimal external 

12 cost of renewables, such as wind and solar, 

13 decreased to near zero once the facility is 

14 built, since there is no external cost for using 

15 wind or sunlight as an energy source. 

16 Thank you for allowing me to comment on 

17 the Clean Power Plan. 

18 MR. KOERBER: Thank you, sir. Thank you 

19 for being with us today. 

20 MR. MASTROPAOLO: Okay. 

21 MR. KOERBER: Next, I'd like to call 

22 Russell Zerbo. 
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1 MR. ZERBO: Good morning. 

2 MR. KOERBER: Good morning, Mr. Zerbo. 

3 Thank you for being with us today. 

4 MR. ZERBO: Thank you for having me. 

5 I submitted more formal comments, but 

6 while I'm here, I just wanted to touch on a few 

7 specific things. 

8 I appreciate the ambitious schedule of 

9 public hearings on the Clean Power Plan the EPA 

10 has undertaken. It is a great relief to know 

11 that Pennsylvania does not plan to request an 

12 extension to comply with the Clean Power Plan and 

13 should not require a federal implementation plan, 

14 but broaching the topic remains important. 

15 Rather than speaking to the FIP, I want 

16 to address some things to look out for in the 

17 state's plan which seems pragmatic. 

18 With Clean Air Council's petition to 

19 update building codes in the state, we have 

20 offered concrete solutions to reducing 

21 Pennsylvania's carbon dioxide pollution and 

22 encouraging a healthy economy. The Council 
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1 believes energy efficiency is an ideal method to 

2 promote jobs in construction and retrofitting 

3 while reducing resident utility bills and 

4 conserving energy. 

5 To fully realize the benefits of reducing 

6 energy consumption, we have to generate less 

7 electricity. I realize that Pennsylvania covets 

8 its position as a net exporter of electricity, 

9 but there must be some accounting for the 

10 pollution generated from electricity not used in 

11 Pennsylvania. 

12 I also appreciate Pennsylvania's renewed 

13 interest in environmental justice for its 

14 citizens. This interest requires swift 

15 follow-through and a clear policy that prevents 

16 the clustering of toxic pollution sources in 

17 minority low-income areas. 

18 Pennsylvania has a confluence or, rather, 

19 Pennsylvania has confluences of these forces, 

20 unfortunately, encouraged by the state's Tier 2 

21 alternative energy portfolio standards. Within 

22 those Tier 2 standards, Pennsylvania encourages 
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1 and subsidizes the burning of coal refuse and 

2 municipal waste where it otherwise would not be 

3 profitable. 

4 Nine of Pennsylvania's 14 coal refuse 

5 power plants are in environmental justice areas. 

6 Five of Pennsylvania's six trash incinerators are 

7 in environmental justice areas. Six of 

8 Pennsylvania's seven coal-fired power plants are 

9 in environmental justice areas. 

10 Because the EPA uses census tracts to 

11 define areas that are either 20 percent minority 

12 or 30 percent under the poverty line, many 

13 communities within the radii of pollution sources 

14 are ignored. A simple solution is to look at the 

15 demographics of areas within 3 miles of a 

16 pollution source. Using gerrymandered Census 

17 tracts only serves to confuse the environmental 

18 realities of being poor or non-white. 

19 And I realize that the EPA is evolving 

20 their EJ strategy to include a number of 

21 different factors, but I believe Pennsylvania is 

22 still on the old system of using Census tracts, 
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1 Coal refuse and municipal solid 

2 waste are also significantly more carbon 

3 intensive than coal. You have heard technology 

4 claiming these fuels can be used to aid 

5 compliance with the Clean Power Plan. This is an 

6 accounting deception. 

7 EPA ignores much of the carbon dioxide 

8 emissions from municipal solid waste under the 

9 guides that it has generated from the burning of 

10 paper. To equate the national release of carbon 

11 dioxide emissions from municipal solid waste 

12 under the guides that it has generated from the 

13 burning of paper. To equate the natural release 

14 of carbon dioxide from the decomposition of trees 

15 to the incineration of paper products is 

16 ridiculous and a clear concession to the waste 

17 industry. 

18 Likewise, the emissions from coal refuse 

19 power plants should be taken as they are and not 

20 allowed excuses or omissions. Touting the 

21 environmental benefits of trash or coal refuse 

22 incineration requires a judgment that the health 
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1 and well-being of someone living near a waste 

2 pile is more important than that of someone 

3 living near a waste burner. 

4 Even without increased wind and solar 

5 energy, Pennsylvania can meet the EPA's carbon 

6 dioxide reduction goal through accounting for the 

7 state's exported energy and updated building 

8 codes. There is no reason to expand coal refuse 

9 or trash incineration. 

10 If Pennsylvania is to increase 

11 environmental justice, these pollution sources 

12 should be decommissioned. The power they 

13 generate is negligible, and a vast majority of 

14 waste plans are over 20 years old at least. 

15 Thank you for this opportunity and your 

16 efforts to instill climate change. 

17 MR. KOERBER: Thank you, sir. And you 

18 said you submitted written comments or plan to 

19 submit written comments? 

20 MR. ZERBO: I e-mailed them yesterday. 

21 MR. KOERBER: Excellent. Thank you so 

22 much. 
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1 Next, I'd like to call Michael Goodhart. 

2 Good morning, Mr. Goodhart. Thank you 

3 for being with us today. 

4 DR. GOODHART: Good morning. Thank you 

5 for having me. My name is Dr. Michael Goodhart. 

6 I'm a professor of Political Science at the 

7 University of Pittsburgh, and I am here 

8 representing Pittsburgh350.org, a local branch of 

9 a global organization and movement that aims to 

10 stop the impending climate catastrophe. 

11 In preparing for my testimony this 

12 morning, I consulted the EPA fact sheet entitled 

13 "Overview of Clean Power Plan." The fact sheet 

14 states that, and I quote, fossil fuels will 

15 continue to be a critical component of America's 

16 energy future, end quote. 

17 If so, the plan is designed to fail in 

18 protecting our climate and our communities. It 

19 will destroy our future. Why? Because the best 

20 climate science today, the overwhelming majority 

21 of all climate science, tells us that if our 

22 planet's atmosphere rises by more -- the 
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1 temperature rises by more than 2 degrees 

2 Centigrade, life as we know it on this planet may 

3 well become unsustainable. 

4 Indeed, many climate scientists worry 

5 that we are not really safe beyond 1.5 degrees 

6 Centigrade. We have already reached nearly .7 

7 degrees or half of our safe carbon budget. That 

8 means that roughly 80 percent of the known fossil 

9 fuels reserves in the world must stay in the 

10 ground if we are to avoid the most dire impacts 

11 of climate change, impacts that dwarf those 

12 already seen in the droughts, destructive super 

13 storms, and climate-driven conflicts that are 

14 evident all over our fragile planet. 

15 To keep that 80 percent in the ground 

16 means that we need to use the next few years to 

17 transition completely off of fossil fuels 

18 forever. If the EPA is planning on fossil fuels 

19 being part of our energy future, it's planning on 

20 a future of climate catastrophe. We don't need 

21 to reduce carbon emissions. We need to eliminate 

22 them before we expend our carbon budget. That's 
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1 what the science tells us. That's not a question 

2 of ideology or policy. It's a question of the 

3 chemical composition of our atmosphere. 

4 The Clean Power Plan is, nonetheless, a 

5 step in the right direction. It provides the 

6 apparatus for federal and state governments to 

7 encourage a dramatic shift toward renewable 

8 energy. It also recognizes the important 

9 connections between reducing carbon emissions and 

10 creating a healthier atmosphere and environmental 

11 for us to inhabit. As we eliminate emissions 

12 from burning fossil fuels, we also thereby 

13 eliminate many toxic pollutants that undermine 

14 our health and hold back our economy. 

15 This is an important moment for the EPA 

16 to be taking action. A green economy is now 

17 within our reach. Unprecedented reductions in 

18 the cost of renewable energy and growing 

19 economies of scale combined with rapidly 

20 improving technology make a fully green economy 

21 not only possible, but cost effective in the 

22 immediate future. 
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1 Indeed, renewables are already 

2 competitive with fossil fuels in many markets, 

3 despite the massive public subsidies to the 

4 fossil fuel industry. This economic threat, in 

5 fact, explains why the fossil fuel companies and 

6 their moguls spend billions on misinformation and 

7 on paying off politicians to deny climate 

8 science. If their main asset has to stay in the 

9 ground and if that prospect is both affordable 

10 and appealing for health and environmental 

11 reasons, they're finished. 

12 Unfortunately, however, the Clean Power 

13 Plan relies on a flawed mechanism to encourage 

14 this shift, carbon emissions trading schemes. 

15 Such schemes can have an effect in reducing 

16 emissions, but they have two significant flaws. 

17 First, carbon credit or offset markets are 

18 notoriously rife with abuse, including bogus 

19 offset schemes and problems of opacity. 

20 Second, and even more worryingly, trading 

21 schemes incentivize the placement of 

22 high-polluting facilities in poor, minority, and 
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1 otherwise marginalized neighborhoods where the 

2 costs of polluting are lowest due to lax 

3 enforcement and political disenfranchisement. 

4 This is in part why climate change impacts the 

5 poor and marginalized people of our country and 

6 our planet most profoundly and directly. We find 

7 it easy and convenient to ignore the plight of 

8 our less fortunate neighbors. 

9 Happily, better solutions exist. One 

10 such solution, a close relative of what EPA 

11 proposes, is the carbon fee and dividend plan 

12 proposed by our friends at Citizens Climate 

13 Lobby. In such schemes, a fee is placed on 

14 carbon at the point of extraction, and the 

15 revenues generated by the fee are returned to 

16 citizens in the form of a dividend that helps 

17 families and individuals bear the costs of 

18 adjustment to a zero carbon future. 

19 As the fee progressively increases, 

20 carbon production becomes increasingly costly, 

21 incentivizing the shift to cleaner renewable 

22 energy achieved completely through market 
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1 mechanisms. Such a plan is superior to trading 

2 because it imposes a fair and equal price on 

3 carbon in all communities, and it ensures that 

4 fossil fuels will be phased out completely as 

5 they lose their economic viability. The 

6 dividends also help to ensure that the least 

7 fortunate members of our society receive 

8 assistance in making the transition to a clean 

9 energy future. 

10 The EPA should abandon cap-and-trade and 

11 embrace fee and dividend instead. This is the 

12 best and may be the only way to ensure that we 

13 phase out fossil fuels in time to avert the 

14 irreversible damage to our climate, our 

15 environment, our communities, and our future. 

16 EPA should also establish a clear, 

17 predictable, and ambitious fee increase schedule 

18 that will ensure our rapid and permanent 

19 transition away from fossil fuels. 

20 Thank you very much. 

21 MR. KOERBER: Thank you, sir. 

22 Can you give me 30 seconds about your 
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1 organization, just a quick download? 

2 DR. GOODHART: Yes, absolutely. 

3 Oh, yeah. Sorry. So Pittsburgh350.org 

4 is a local grassroots, actually genuinely 

5 grassroots, not funded by any corporate, anything 

6 in the background, an organization. The name 350 

7 comes from the calculation of 350 parts per 

8 million of carbon in the atmosphere, the level at 

9 which scientists think we need to stay below. 

10 Unfortunately, we're up above about 400 parts per 

11 million right now, so we've got to actually go 

12 backwards rather than staying in place. And the 

13 purpose of the organization is to raise 

14 awareness, to help organize and coordinate action 

15 in the community, and to educate people about 

16 these important issues. 

17 So we do that in a number of ways: 

18 through community outreach, sponsoring rallies, 

19 organizing around the COP21 talks coming up in 

20 Paris and so on. 

21 MR. KOERBER: Thank you so much. 

22 DR. GOODHART: Yeah. And I have not yet 
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1 submitted, but I have a copy, if I can -- 

2 MR. KOERBER: You can drop it with the 

3 court reporter. 

4 DR. GOODHART: Very good. Thank you so 

5 much. 

6 MR. KOERBER: We'll make sure it gets 

7 entered into the record along with your verbal 

8 testimony today. Thank you so much, sir. 

9 I'd like to call Fred Kraybill. Thank 

10 you for being with us today. If you have extra, 

11 we'll take one here, and if you have one for the 

12 court reporter, that would be great. 

13 MR. KRAYBILL: May I start? 

14 MR. KOERBER: Yes. Whenever you're 

15 ready, sir. 

16 MR. KRAYBILL: All right. My name is 

17 Fred Kraybill, and I live in Pittsburgh. I'm a 

18 part owner and manager of Thomas Boulevard Group, 

19 which owns and operates an apartment building. 

20 Thomas Boulevard Group is a solar-powered 

21 business. We have solar panels on the roof, 

22 geothermal heating for the building, and an 
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1 electric car for transportation. We suppose 

2 clean energy. 

3 Point Breeze, where we are located, 

4 recently ran a solarized campaign to educate the 

5 community about solar energy, and we were able to 

6 increase the solar installations in Point Breeze 

7 from 9 to 18 homes. The interesting thing is 

8 what the solar home owners are saying about their 

9 reasons for going solar, such as to help the 

10 planet, to not contribute to other people's poor 

11 health, to reduce our carbon footprint, and to 

12 fight climate change. 

13 Increasingly, the end user of electricity 

14 is demanding clean energy and a livable climate, 

15 and I view the EPA's Clean Power Plan as a 

16 response by the government to meet this pressing 

17 need. 

18 Our neighboring state of West Virginia 

19 has been dominated by the coal industry for many 

20 years. West Virginia not only produces a lot of 

21 coal, but they also use a lot of coal for 

22 electrical generation. Coal has been on the 
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1 decline in recent years. 

2 Pittsburghers can understand what it's 

3 like to be dominated by one industry. At one 

4 time, the steel was king in Pittsburgh, and we 

5 lost this major industry in the '70s and '80s 

6 without anything to replace it. 

7 But West Virginia has a major opportunity 

8 to develop wind power in its numerous wind-swept 

9 ridges. Replacing aging, polluting power plants 

10 with clean energy would truly be an environmental 

11 victory that would grow the economy and create 

12 jobs. Coal mines deplete and eventually shut 

13 down, but the wind keeps blowing. 

14 Worldwide, there is a clean energy race 

15 going on. Mercom Capital predicts 57 gigawatts 

16 of solar will be installed this year, and another 

17 59 gigawatts of wind power will be installed this 

18 year. Both of these numbers are record-breaking 

19 numbers. The clean energy race is a race America 

20 should win, but we can't win it if we're not in 

21 it. The Clean Power Plan puts us in the clean 

22 energy race. 
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1 We have a major wind power corridor 

2 developing right here in the tristate area. From 

3 the Johnstown area in Blair and Cambria Counties, 

4 there are several wind farms. Heading south to 

5 Somerset County, there are about nine wind farms. 

6 Crossing the border into Maryland, there are 

7 several wind farms in the Deep Creek Lake area. 

8 Then crossing the border into West Virginia is 

9 one of the largest wind farms east of the 

10 Mississippi in the town of Mount Storm. 

11 We should continue this build-out. 

12 Pennsylvania can build more wind power and also 

13 import wind from areas such as West Virginia. 

14 What about natural gas? We should avoid 

15 natural gas. It may burn cleaner than coal, but 

16 it still emits CO2. Gas wells deplete rapidly. 

17 They can pollute the surrounding water supplies, 

18 and worst of all, methane that leaks from the 

19 pipeline infrastructure is a more potent 

20 greenhouse gas than CO2. 

21 What about the need for storage for 

22 renewable energy? This claim is sometimes 
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1 overblown. Balancing the intermittency of wind 

2 and solar is not even necessary until we get to 

3 about 25 percent mark because there are already 

4 dispatchable resources on the grid that can 

5 balance the variable nature of renewable energy. 

6 After 25 percent renewable energy, we can 

7 use storage. We have dams to store water for 

8 irrigation, for flood control, and to generate 

9 electricity. We even have damns that pump water 

10 from a lower reservoir to an upper dam at night 

11 when electricity prices are low and use that 

12 water to generate electricity during the day when 

13 prices are high. This type of electric storage 

14 is called "pumped hydro." 

15 Solutions such as this and others can get 

16 renewable energy to high levels of penetration on 

17 the grid. We make huge concessions to the 

18 nuclear industry, such as the federal government 

19 ensuring nuclear power in the event of a 

20 catastrophic meltdown, so we most certainly can 

21 assist renewable energy by building more storage. 

22 We must transition all fossil fuels for a 
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1 cleaner and healthier and safer planet. Remember 

2 the solution to pollution is renewable. It's 

3 doable. 

4 MR. KOERBER: Thank you so much, sir. 

5 MR. KRAYBILL: Pardon? 

6 MR. KOERBER: Thank you so much. 

7 MR. KRAYBILL: Thank you. 

8 MR. KOERBER: Appreciate you being here 

9 today. 

10 MR. KRAYBILL: Yeah. 

11 MR. KOERBER: Next, I'd like to call 

12 Bryan Cohen. 

13 Good morning, Mr. Cohen. Thank you for 

14 being here today. 

15 MR. COHEN: Hi. Thank you for having me. 

16 MR. KOERBER: Yeah. 

17 MR. COHEN: Can you hear me? 

18 MR. KOERBER: Yes. Whenever you're 

19 ready, sir. 

20 MR. COHEN: Well, this is -- I don't have 

21 any prepared remarks. I am a freelance 

22 photographer living and working in Pittsburgh. 
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1 I'm here because I have been working recently on 

2 a couple of projects, one about Marcellus shale 

3 drilling and more recently about air quality in 

4 Pittsburgh, and this was a group photography, 

5 documentary project about the quality of the air 

6 that we breathe in Pittsburgh. 

7 As you can imagine, photographing 

8 something that you can't see is not necessarily 

9 the easiest thing to do, but it did enable myself 

10 and my colleagues to spend some considerable time 

11 traveling around the area, considering the issues 

12 surrounding air quality, and I have to say, 

13 having lived in Pittsburgh for 9 years now and 

14 having brought my four kids to live here and 

15 raise them here, it has been a wonderful 

16 experience overall. 

17 I have to say that I started waking up in 

18 the mornings feeling like I should apologize to 

19 my children every time I saw them for having 

20 brought them to this place where the quality of 

21 the air is so palpably bad, and while I realize 

22 this is a session that's about clean power and 
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1 it's not just the power-generating facilities 

2 that are responsible for the poor air in 

3 Pittsburgh, they do make their contribution. 

4 Having said that it's difficult to 

5 photograph things that you can't see, there are 

6 things that are so clearly, visibly wrong. It 

7 really wasn't that difficult. So the kind of 

8 stuff that you see being pumped out into the air 

9 on a daily basis, I'm not a scientist. I don't 

10 need to give you the figures and the data, but 

11 simply to see people living immediately adjacent 

12 to plants that are poisoning the atmosphere 

13 really gave me pause for thought. 

14 I suppose what I'd really like to do in 

15 the couple of minutes I have left is simply to 

16 inject that human component into the conversation 

17 and to remind everybody that we're talking about 

18 the quality of life for real people who are 

19 required to breathe -- I don't know if you can 

20 even call it air, but they are required to 

21 breathe in substances which are clearly 

22 deleterious to their health and to their 
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1 lifestyle, and it affects them on a daily basis. 

2 It affects their children. It affects their 

3 ability to function. 

4 And once we've sifted through all the 

5 figures and the economics and the power issues 

6 and who gets to make the money and who doesn't 

7 and who gets the subsidies and who doesn't and so 

8 on and so on, I'd just like to remind everybody 

9 that we're talking about the lives of real 

10 people, and the lives of people across the region 

11 are being damaged by the kind of stuff that we're 

12 spewing into the air. 

13 So that's really all I have to say. 

14 Thank you. 

15 MR. KOERBER: Thank you, sir. Appreciate 

16 you being here today. 

17 MR. COHEN: Thank you. 

18 MR. KOERBER: Thank you. 

19 Do we have any other registered speakers 

20 in the audience? 

21 [No audible response.] 

22 MR. KOERBER: If not, we'll take a short 
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1 recess until we have speakers. Thank you. 

2 [Recess taken from 9:55 to 10:37 a.m.] 

3 MR. KOERBER: Good morning. It's about 

4 10:37. We will resume, and we have two more 

5 scheduled speakers, Rachel Neffshade and Kevin 

6 Pang. If you'd like to come to the table. 

7 Welcome to our public hearing on EPA's proposed 

8 federal plan for the Clean Power Plan. We have 

9 four representatives from EPA here to hear your 

10 testimony this morning. I'm Mike Koerber. I'm 

11 the hearing officer, and we do have a court 

12 reporter transcribing your remarks this morning. 

13 So whenever you're ready, you can begin. 

14 MS. NEFFSHADE: Sure. May I move this? 

15 MR. KOERBER: Yes, please. 

16 MS. NEFFSHADE: Hi. My name is Rachel 

17 Neffshade. I'm here to speak to you today as a 

18 citizen of the Pittsburgh area and as a mother of 

19 a young infant girl. 

20 I have lived most of my life in Western 

21 Pennsylvania, locating to the Pittsburgh area 

22 about 4 years ago. This region, this land, and 
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1 the life it supports holds a place of love and 

2 awe in my heart. 

3 I see many initiatives throughout the 

4 city and the surrounding suburbs to pay back the 

5 big environmental debts that Pittsburgh acquired 

6 through the coal industry. Individuals are 

7 trying to revitalize the soil and abandoned lots, 

8 and they're also creating a lot of new avenues 

9 toward a sustainable economy. 

10 Despite all these great efforts, the coal 

11 industries still lingers over Pittsburgh like a 

12 grimy black veil. Our city is at the top of the 

13 list in places most polluted by short-term 

14 exposure to particles. There are days when it is 

15 unsafe for my young daughter to be outside, not 

16 because of crime rates, but because of the 

17 pollution collected in the very air we are 

18 breathing right now. 

19 Anyone with asthma who lives in 

20 Pittsburgh often finds him- or herself in the 

21 hospital because of an attack brought on by the 

22 poor air quality. A very good friend of mine who 
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1 lives in the Allentown neighborhood, a low-income 

2 neighborhood here, she has severe asthma and 

3 often has to spend her summers in the hospital, 

4 not outside. 

5 The consequences from excessive levels of 

6 carbon are predicted to be much more dire than a 

7 few days in the house, however, if we fail to 

8 take the proper actions, such as crop failure and 

9 extreme weather. The consequences have just 

10 begun to take hold across the globe, and my 

11 daughter's generation is predicted to bear the 

12 worst of them if we fail to act. 

13 The Clean Power Plan is an important 

14 factor in our urgency to act. Not only will it 

15 cut carbon emissions up to 30 percent by 2030, it 

16 will also stimulate the creation of jobs and 

17 clean energy. These are hopeful changes but not 

18 enough to have a sizable impact on climate 

19 change. 

20 Please do not ignore the magnitude of our 

21 environmental crisis. Cut carbon emissions even 

22 further in the federal plan. 
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1 It is also of the utmost importance that 

2 the federal plan grants protection to those in 

3 low-income, minority, and indigenous communities. 

4 The people within these underserved demographics 

5 have suffered the worst from industrial pollution 

6 and will be hit the hardest by the trials of 

7 climate change. We must act in favor of life 

8 while we can still have an impact. 

9 Thank you for the opportunity to speak. 

10 MR. KOERBER: Thank you so much for being 

11 with us this morning. 

12 Mr. Pang? 

13 MR. PANG: Hi. My name is Kevin Pang. 

14 I'm a senior at the University of Pittsburgh, 

15 studying economics and philosophy. 

16 I'm here to say today that it is 

17 imperative that the EPA enforce a federal 

18 implementation plan for states that do not follow 

19 through and meet standards set forth by the Clean 

20 Air Act. 

21 At the University of Pittsburgh, I am an 

22 organizer with the Fossil-Free Pitt Coalition, 
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1 and we are calling on the university to divest 

2 from the fossil fuel industry. We see that 

3 climate change is not -- no longer just a 

4 national public health issue, but it's a 

5 catastrophe, honestly. It's a catastrophe that 

6 we're seeing across the globe, and I often hear 

7 cited that 2 degrees that we must stay under 

8 that's often cited by the United Nations and 

9 other sources, and they say anything beyond that 

10 is catastrophic. 

11 And I disagree. I think we are seeing 

12 catastrophes across the globe today. I think for 

13 those affected by Hurricane Sandy, those 

14 catastrophic, I see those that are on the front 

15 lines. The effects of climate change that we are 

16 seeing today are catastrophic. 

17 And so, as a student, I've kind of been 

18 trying to figure out my role in this. I feel 

19 like we all play a role in this battle for not 

20 just climate justice, but social justice and 

21 human rights. And so as a student, I am trying 

22 to leverage my power to -- as a member of the 
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1 institution of the University of Pittsburgh to 

2 draw on their larger institutional power and 

3 really take a stance against the fossil fuel 

4 industry and really push forward the effort to 

5 stigmatize the fossil fuel industry because we 

6 recognize that is not sustainable. 

7 And so to me, the role that EPA plays is 

8 obviously on a much larger scale, and I think 

9 it's imperative that we really push, keep pushing 

10 forward what is possible in terms of how we can 

11 confront climate change right now. 

12 The time for talking about -- and 

13 debating about whether climate change is real has 

14 long past, and it's really urgent that we take 

15 action now. So I'm glad to see the Clean Power 

16 Plan put forward, and I hope that this is just 

17 the beginning. 

18 Similarly, with our divestment campaign, 

19 I hope this is just the beginning of students 

20 feeling empowered to take a stance against 

21 climate change, and I hope that the EPA will 

22 continue to push forward measures that can 
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1 continue to challenge what is the current norm. 

2 Thank you for speaking -- thank you for 

3 giving me the opportunity to speak. 

4 MR. KOERBER: Thank you, sir, for being 

5 here. Thank you, ma'am. Appreciate you joining 

6 us today. 

7 MS. NEFFSHADE: Thank you. 

8 MR. PANG: Thanks. 

9 MR. KOERBER: Thank you. 

10 I see no other speakers. No? Okay. We 

11 will take a short recess. Thank you. 

12 [Recess taken from 10:44 to 10:47 a.m.] 

13 MR. KOERBER: It's about 10:47. We will 

14 reopen the session, and our next speaker will be 

15 Mr. Court Gould. 

16 MR. GOULD: Great. Thank you. 

17 MR. KOERBER: Yes. Thank you, sir. 

18 MR. GOULD: I think I recognize you here 

19 from last summer, perhaps. 

20 MR. KOERBER: Yes. Yes, yes. 

21 MR. GOULD: Welcome back to Pittsburgh. 

22 MR. KOERBER: Well, thank you. It's 
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1 certainly a pleasure to be here. 

2 MR. GOULD: Thanks very much. 

3 MR. KOERBER: So I'm with EPA, and we 

4 have other EPA folks here on the panel to listen 

5 to your testimony today. We have a court 

6 reporter taking your notes -- taking notes on 

7 your talks today. 

8 MR. GOULD: Great. 

9 MR. KOERBER: Whenever you're ready, sir. 

10 MR. GOULD: Super. My name is Court 

11 Gould, C-o-u-r-t, G-o-u-l-d. I'm here 

12 representing the non-profit organization called 

13 Sustainable Pittsburgh. I'm the executive 

14 director. We've been in existence since 1998. 

15 Our mission is to accelerate the policy and the 

16 practice of sustainability in generally the 

17 10-county region of Southwestern Pennsylvania. 

18 I thank you for your advancing this 

19 opportunity for the public to provide input to 

20 the Clean Power Plan. It's an extraordinarily 

21 profound initiative of the federal government to 

22 provide opportunity for our states around the 
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1 country to accelerate the transition to a 

2 cleaner, lower carbon economy. 

3 I've got lengthy comments, but in the 

4 interest of boiling it down to the very basics, I 

5 think there's maybe four key points overall. 

6 That the Clean Power Plan indeed gives the states 

7 the flexibility to customize their plans to 

8 reduce carbon pollution in cost-effective ways 

9 that both protect public health, modernize their 

10 energy systems, and lead to clean energy 

11 development, while creating jobs and hastening 

12 really a whole new sector of innovation for the 

13 cleaner, lower carbon economy. 

14 It's really great that in providing the 

15 flexibility, EPA is also providing a model and 

16 assistance to help states that might decide to 

17 forego, creating their individual plans to meet 

18 the carbon reduction targets of the Clean Power 

19 Plan, but nevertheless states would be well 

20 advised to seize the opportunity to create their 

21 own plans to tailor what makes the most sense for 

22 their jurisdictions to reduce dangerous carbon 
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1 pollution and to help mitigate climate change in 

2 the most cost-effective ways and innovate toward 

3 lower carbon economy. 

4 While the Clean Power Plan apparently 

5 doesn't specifically list demand-side energy 

6 efficiency as a building block among the methods 

7 for emission reduction, you all, EPA, as well as 

8 our organization, Sustainable Pittsburgh, 

9 recognize that energy efficiency needs to play a 

10 very prominent role as a proven strategy that 

11 states can use to reduce energy, cut emissions, 

12 and boost the economy. 

13 Energy efficiency represents the 

14 cleanest, lowest cost, and fastest method of 

15 emissions reduction. For these reasons, 

16 Sustainable Pittsburgh urge states to adopt the 

17 benefits of the Clean Power Plan's smart Clean 

18 Energy Incentive Program, CEIP. As you know, 

19 this is a voluntary matching-fund program that 

20 states can use to incentivize early investment in 

21 eligible renewable energy as well as demand-side 

22 energy efficiency projects that generate 
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1 carbon-free energy or reduce and use energy 

2 demand, particularly with extra incentive for 

3 that which benefits low-income communities. 

4 Other specific recommendations with 

5 regard to CEIP is that it should accept any 

6 projects that demonstrate energy savings through 

7 avoided usage. Establishment of such 

8 energy-efficiency programs, as Act 129 in 

9 Pennsylvania, have standard protocols for project 

10 eligibility, measurement and verification. CEIP 

11 can easily adopt existing frameworks, such as 

12 this one here in Pennsylvania and many more 

13 around other states around the country whose 

14 guidelines are familiar to utility companies and 

15 customer service providers across many states. 

16 Many states have technical reference 

17 manuals that are similar, which would allow for 

18 easy incorporation of the same such guidelines 

19 into their federal implementation plans. 

20 The CEIP should encourage solar 

21 photovoltaic arrays on schools, municipal 

22 buildings, and low-income affordable housing 
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1 projects, and there are several options available 

2 to assist with the cost of renewable 

3 developments. State funding criteria could be 

4 adjusted to include energy efficiency or 

5 renewable generation metrics, perhaps using 

6 carbon emissions as a metric. Large-scale solar 

7 arrays could be developed in conjunction with 

8 utility companies as part of a power purchase 

9 agreement, or low-income community members could 

10 invest in these projects as owners. 

11 I think I'm out of time. I'll submit 

12 this written testimony, if I may, which has a 

13 couple more specific suggestions around CEIP. 

14 MR. KOERBER: Feel free to take another 

15 minute or two, given the lack of other registered 

16 speakers behind you. 

17 MR. GOULD: Okay. The line is not too 

18 long. 

19 [Laughter.] 

20 MR. GOULD: Sorry to just be reading 

21 this. 

22 While federal program money cannot be 
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1 applied to CEIP, state dollars can be applied to 

2 CEIP participation. Recommend that states should 

3 be encouraged to leverage existing state-run 

4 programs such, again, as people's Act 129, 

5 low-income usage reduction programs, and 

6 weatherization assistance programs. 

7 Energy savings recognized under these 

8 programs could be applied to the CPP reduction 

9 target. Compliance will be made easier if CEIP 

10 guidelines mirror those already in existence 

11 under these state programs. 

12 And lastly, ultimately, state plans would 

13 be well advised to include language stating 

14 intention to participate in CEIP. The details of 

15 the plan should include room for both energy 

16 efficiency and renewable energy, such as wind and 

17 solar. We encourage a broad definition of energy 

18 efficiency using language that can allow room for 

19 a distributed generation and demands response as 

20 well. 

21 Thanks very much. I appreciate your time 

22 to allow the public to voice its studied inputs. 
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1 MR. KOERBER: Thank you so much. 

2 Give me 30 seconds on Act 129. I'm not 

3 familiar with the details of it. 

4 MR. GOULD: Act 129 is the Pennsylvania 

5 Utility Commission's incentive program for 

6 utilities across the Commonwealth to work with 

7 their consumers to reduce energy demand and 

8 consumption, so as to benefit everybody by 

9 forestalling or avoiding the exorbitant cost of 

10 building new power generation plants to meet 

11 growing demand. 

12 It's been tremendously effective across 

13 the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in inducing 

14 utilities to work with their customers to begin 

15 reducing overall demand on the grid, which also 

16 helps with resiliency in a state where we have 

17 wild climate swings and heavy weather that has 

18 caused blackouts here and there. 

19 MR. KOERBER: Very good. Thank you so 

20 much, sir. 

21 MR. GOULD: Thank you. 

22 MR. KOERBER: Appreciate you being here. 
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1 MR. GOULD: Where would I turn this in? 

2 MR. KOERBER: You can drop it off with 

3 our court reporter. 

4 MR. GOULD: Great. Thank you. 

5 MR. KOERBER: Thank you. 

6 I would next like to call Jody Handley. 

7 Good morning, Ms. Handley. Thank you for 

8 being with us today. 

9 MS. HANDLEY: Good morning. Thanks for 

10 being here. My name is Jody Handley, J-o-d-y, 

11 H-a-n-d-l-e-y. 

12 I have to confess I wasn't sure what the 

13 context with the audience would be, and the 

14 remarks I so carefully prepared are probably not 

15 appropriate, so I'm going to wing it a little 

16 bit. 

17 I'm actually here as a private citizen. 

18 I moved to Pittsburgh 3 years ago from San 

19 Francisco, and before that, I lived in New York 

20 City, and before that, I lived in Greene County, 

21 which is southwest of here, and it's deep, deep 

22 in Coal Country. 
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1 My mom grew up in Braddock, which you've 

2 probably heard about from time to time. It's in 

3 the shadow of the Edgar Thomson Works. She used 

4 to talk about how she would wipe soot from her 

5 face when she would get to school in the morning. 

6 And my dad actually grew up downriver in McKees 

7 Rocks, which is within blowing distance of 

8 Shenango. 

9 So while this isn't specifically -- my 

10 story is not specifically regarding climate, I'm 

11 sure that you've heard other folks talking about 

12 the serious quality of life problem in Pittsburgh 

13 right now, and obviously, we all know that that 

14 affects the climate as well with the power plants 

15 and everything. 

16 So, when I moved back here, I thought 

17 that it was going to be great, and it has been 

18 mostly, but I find myself waking up at 2:30 in 

19 the morning to close the windows because the 

20 smell of sulfur and benzene is so overpowering. 

21 I made enough complaints to the ACHD over 

22 time that I got some calls back, and it turns out 
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1 that it's coming from the Clairton Coke Works. 

2 And I began getting involved with ACCAN, which is 

3 a group here, Allegheny County Clean Air, and 

4 they are mostly based around Ben Avon, which is 

5 where Shenango is. 

6 If it's that bad where I live, where I'm 

7 waking up in the middle of the night to close my 

8 windows -- and I am 12 miles upriver from 

9 Clairton -- the people who live there are in a 

10 depressed area. They're overwhelmingly, 

11 probably, impoverished and minority, and their 

12 air is so much worse than mine is because I have 

13 instances where it's bad. They're living in it 

14 all the time. 

15 But my frustration has been when I've 

16 been going to the Allegheny County Health 

17 Department, has been -- I've noticed them 

18 changing over the last year, but generally, what 

19 I hear from them is we need more data. We don't 

20 have enough, basically because when they go -- 

21 when anybody tries to bring a suit against any of 

22 the coke plants or power plants or anyone that's 
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1 creating this huge pollution problem in 

2 Southwestern Pennsylvania, they're basically 

3 told, "Well, you can't really prove it's them." 

4 There's kind of a "blame it on the dog" kind of 

5 thing going around, and it's very frustrating 

6 because everybody kind of knows where it's coming 

7 from, but nobody can prove it. And that's 

8 basically what's being told. 

9 And the ACHD is also just kind of 

10 plotting toward meeting federal standards, and 

11 the federal standards right now are not nearly as 

12 high as I think a lot of us really believe that 

13 they should be. So it's very frustrating. 

14 And my call to action that I often make 

15 is not necessarily telling my personal story, 

16 which is probably the same personal story you 

17 hear from a lot of other people about the bad 

18 smells and the terrible mornings when you try to 

19 walk your kid to work -- or walk your kid to 

20 school, and I worry for her health. Everybody 

21 tells those stories. 

22 Generally, I try to make a call to action 
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1 to get people to just report it because so many 

2 people don't -- either they don't believe that 

3 it's going to make a difference or they don't 

4 even know how. I don't necessarily have to ask 

5 you guys to report it. 

6 But one of the things that I do want to 

7 also mention is that somebody has come to me 

8 recently and said, "Do you ever feel like you're 

9 living in a Twilight Zone?" and I do. You start 

10 wondering about your own sanity because I'll talk 

11 to people and say, "Can you believe how bad the 

12 air was last night or this morning?" and -- "What 

13 do you mean?" Like, they don't -- they either 

14 have lived here so long that they don't notice 

15 it, or they just think that's the way a city 

16 smells. It's depressing. 

17 And there's also a -- I'm sorry. Am I 

18 running over time right now? How am I for time. 

19 MR. KOERBER: No. Feel free. 

20 MS. HANDLEY: Okay. I know that there's 

21 a big backup here. 

22 [Laughter.] 
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1 MR. KOERBER: Go on. 

2 MS. HANDLEY: I'll talk your ear off all 

3 day. 

4 There's also something that we're -- I'm 

5 sure that you already know about this. There's 

6 deeply enculturated industry in Pittsburgh, and 

7 it is part of the culture. Our team's name is 

8 the Steelers, and I grew up, as I said, in Coal 

9 Country. And any threat to the idea of industry 

10 or jobs that may or may not exist is immediately 

11 met with a kneejerk reaction, even though there's 

12 actually a lot fewer jobs that are being affected 

13 than there are people. 

14 And this is also part of my call to -- 

15 and I really appreciate that you all came here -- 

16 you selected Pittsburgh as one of the cities -- 

17 to try to convince people that actually there is 

18 a problem. I mean, we don't even -- we haven't 

19 necessarily made that first step yet, and we're 

20 getting there. 

21 I've seen a lot of improvements with the 

22 ACHD. Finally, in the last, I think, 6 months or 
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1 so, there's a link on their site specifically for 

2 air quality complaints, which is very exciting. 

3 That used to be just one form for complaints all 

4 over, and now they're actually narrowing it down 

5 to air quality complaints. And the rhetoric in 

6 the meetings has changed a little bit to kind of 

7 support less about "Well, we're trying to get 

8 the" -- you know, "We're way better than we used 

9 to be," and now actually saying, "Okay. Well, we 

10 actually have to get not better than we used to 

11 be but good," and that's one of the lines that I 

12 often give when I'm talking with people is that 

13 better isn't good. 

14 I've heard people in Pittsburgh say, 

15 "We're a lot better than we were in the '50s," 

16 which -- yay. We're not, you know, keeping the 

17 lights on in the daytime. 

18 I heard somebody on the radio defending 

19 how great Pittsburgh was, the air quality, by 

20 comparing us to Beijing, and people used to say 

21 Pittsburgh in the '50s and '40s was hell with the 

22 lid off. So our basis for comparison right now 
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1 is Beijing and hell, which I don't think is 

2 really that great. 

3 As the risk of repeating myself, I'm 

4 going to go ahead and close out there. Do you 

5 have any questions, anything else that I can 

6 elaborate on? 

7 MR. KOERBER: No. I do want to thank you 

8 for being here today. I mean, part of us coming 

9 to Pittsburgh is to hear from the local citizens 

10 and various community groups. We view the Clean 

11 Power Plan as yet another opportunity for states 

12 to work with communities in developing clean air 

13 plans, specifically for climate, but we recognize 

14 the other co-benefits that the Clean Power Plan 

15 will afford. 

16 So hearing from communities, one thing 

17 we've asked states to do under the Clean Power 

18 Plan is to work with local community groups. So 

19 your being here, you participating, the other 

20 people who have been here this morning, we've 

21 heard over the past day and a half, we really 

22 appreciate everybody attending and offering their 
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1 thoughts and ideas for us, so thank you for being 

2 here. 

3 MS. HANDLEY: I'm glad to be here. Is 

4 there anything else that I can do? 

5 [Laughter.] 

6 MR. KOERBER: I'm good here, unless the 

7 other panelists have questions. 

8 [No audible response.] 

9 MR. KOERBER: Thank you. 

10 MS. HANDLEY: Thank you very much. 

11 MR. KOERBER: Thank you. 

12 MS. HANDLEY: Have a great day. 

13 MR. KOERBER: Thank you. 

14 Jody Handley, if you're ready, we're 

15 ready. 

16 MS. HANDLEY: That was me. 

17 MR. KOERBER: Oh, I'm sorry. 

18 Eric Casteel. 

19 MR. CASTEEL: Good morning. 

20 MR. KOERBER: Good morning. 

21 MR. CASTEEL: My name is Eric Casteel, 

22 and I appreciate the opportunity to be able to 
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1 speak here. My last name is spelled 

2 C-a-s-t-e-e-l, just like "ca-steel." We're in 

3 the Steel City, so that helps. 

4 I'm here as a businessman. I'm also here 

5 as an advocate for clean power, and I'm also here 

6 as an owner of a clean power energy system on my 

7 home. I have a solar system on my home, and I am 

8 adding wind power in the very near future. 

9 My business, I'm in an area here in the 

10 heart of Coal and Gas Country. I'm a 

11 manufacturer of renewable energy products. We 

12 manufacture a mobile/towable generator that runs 

13 off of solar and wind power. We also do solar 

14 panel racking systems, and we also have an 

15 off-grid solar power product, and we also 

16 manufacture battery cabinets. So we are well 

17 positioned to be able to talk intelligently about 

18 this. 

19 I've been dealing with the electric power 

20 industry for over 20 years. I've operated with 

21 nuclear power plants. I've operated with control 

22 systems for fossil fuel power plants and solar, 
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1 wind, hydro, geothermal, and biomass. 

2 Our business focus is not only here in 

3 Pennsylvania, but all across the United States, 

4 and we're now starting to make inroads into 

5 Canada and in Mexico for our -- what we call our 

6 "development business." We actually design and 

7 install solar and wind systems, more based on 

8 commercial industrial community and utility 

9 scale. 

10 Last year, after attending some -- well, 

11 actually, in the past 2 years, after attending 

12 some of the solar and wind conferences here in 

13 the U.S., it's become very apparent that energy 

14 storage is becoming a critical component of 

15 renewable energy and energy in general and would 

16 go a long way to help some of our clean power 

17 issues. 

18 We know that wind can operate 24 hours a 

19 day, but solar, we're only going to get about -- 

20 in this area, we'll get 14 hours a day during the 

21 summer and about 8 hours a day in the wintertime. 

22 So we don't have -- we can't take advantage of 
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1 that power 24 hours a day, but with energy 

2 storage, we can. It can help offset many of the 

3 generating issues we deal with today in our 

4 fossil fuel power plants. 

5 With energy storage, because we do 

6 projects all across the United States, many parts 

7 of the country, I see on customers' electric 

8 bills where they have -- they're being charged 

9 for losses on the transmission lines as well as 

10 losses on the distribution lines. And what that 

11 means is that we've built a grid infrastructure 

12 and a system that's designed to push power out 

13 for long distances, but it's not very efficient. 

14 So my point of this is we need more distributed 

15 energy. We need to have things here locally that 

16 can help. 

17 One of the things we work with businesses 

18 on that deal with demand charges and deal with 

19 outages during the core part of their operations 

20 is providing energy storage, is providing demand 

21 response capabilities, and the more that we can 

22 do that with clean power, the better off we're 
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1 going to be. 

2 Also coming from -- I'm a Southwestern 

3 Pennsylvania native. I grew up here in Coal 

4 Country, Coal and Gas Country, and I still 

5 believe that our direction is we need to move 

6 away from those fuels. There's a right place and 

7 time for them and a balanced way to go about it. 

8 The point I'm bringing that up, it has to deal 

9 with the carbon credits. 

10 Our utility companies have had carbon 

11 credits for a number of years, and they use those 

12 to help -- to help stay compliant with the 

13 alternative energy portfolio standards of the 

14 states. Well, I applaud that those are in there 

15 and understand the need for those to be there, so 

16 that our utility companies can continue to 

17 operate, and we as ratepayers are not going to be 

18 penalized for the need for them to go to clean 

19 power. But the potential exists that it will 

20 cause the utility companies to procrastinate, and 

21 the utility companies aren't necessarily the best 

22 ones to be implementing this. Independent power 
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1 products that build wind farms and solar projects 

2 and even us as individual homeowners, as we start 

3 to add solar and wind power to our homes and add 

4 more distributed energy, it's going to be -- it's 

5 going to take -- have less impact on our grid. 

6 We're dealing with, in some cases, grid 

7 infrastructure that's been in place for 70 to 80 

8 years and really needs to be updated in order to 

9 handle distributed technology or distributed 

10 electric generation. So that's a problem that 

11 also needs to be looked at for this as part of 

12 our clean energy program. 

13 So, in closing, I'd like to see -- I 

14 applaud what you're doing, and I would like to 

15 see more things along the lines of distributed 

16 generation. 

17 And I also failed to mentioned energy 

18 efficiency. We as homeowners, businesses, we 

19 need to look at being more energy efficient. I'm 

20 working on projects today in Africa, where we're 

21 being asked to come in, and today they run off of 

22 -- their cell towers run off of diesel 
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1 generators, 24 hours a day, because they don't 

2 have the infrastructure. We're looking at going 

3 in and replacing those with solar systems. Where 

4 we have space, we can completely eliminate the 

5 generator. Where we don't have space, we can 

6 significantly reduce the diesel generator times. 

7 So we need to take a lesson and learn 

8 from it. We've kind of gotten spoiled. We have 

9 electricity at our disposal, anytime, so we're 

10 not necessarily efficient with everything we do 

11 at our homes and our businesses. So a focus on 

12 energy efficiency is also needed. 

13 Do you have any questions for me? 

14 MR. KOERBER: Thank you, sir, for being 

15 here today. 

16 I do, actually. Approximately, how many 

17 people does your company employ, and where have 

18 most of your workers come? Have they been coming 

19 from other industries, or where do you get most 

20 of your workers? 

21 MR. CASTEEL: Well, we have a lot of 

22 transitioning employees, part-time -- or 
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1 employees that come and go because of our 

2 projects. 

3 In our manufacturing business, we have 

4 four people. Our model has been -- our core 

5 focus is engineering. We're very good at 

6 designing and inventing products. We're not 

7 necessarily great at the manufacturing process of 

8 putting things together. So we have contract 

9 manufacturers that do the work for us. 

10 So in the contract manufacture, we've 

11 probably added anywhere from 15 to 20 people over 

12 the last 2 years for our products, and if we get 

13 the contracts we're working on in Africa right 

14 now, we're going to be probably doubling that 

15 over the next year because of those 

16 opportunities. 

17 MR. KOERBER: Very good. Thank you, sir. 

18 MR. CASTEEL: Thank you. 

19 MR. KOERBER: Anybody else, questions? 

20 [No audible response.] 

21 MR. KOERBER: No? 

22 Thank you for being with us. 
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1 Next, I'd like to call Michael Barry. 

2 Good morning, Mr. Barry. Thank you for 

3 being here today. 

4 MR. BARRY: Good morning. My name is 

5 Mike Barry, B-a-r-r-y, and thanks for having this 

6 event here, so we can talk about the Clean Power 

7 Plan. 

8 I'm here in three capacities: as a 

9 former worker in the oil and gas industry for 14 

10 years; as the founder of a renewable energy 

11 startup company, Solar Land Solutions. I'm 

12 actually participating in the DOE SunShot 

13 Catalyst program, and I will be presenting 

14 minimally viable product on December 10th at the 

15 Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 

16 hopefully get another round of funding for the 

17 product. I'm also here as a private citizen 

18 concerned about the environment. 

19 I'll give you a little bit of background 

20 on my company. We're a renewable energy land 

21 service company, so what we do is early-stage 

22 land acquisition, siting, due diligence for solar 
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1 projects, mainly utility community and commercial 

2 solar projects. 

3 Obviously, I don't do much work in 

4 Pennsylvania because I believe we only get .5 

5 percent -- .5 of 1 percent of our energy from 

6 solar here in Pennsylvania. That's according to 

7 the EIA, and I don't know how accurate their 

8 figures are. I've heard people complain about 

9 some of their numbers. 

10 Pennsylvania set an alternative energy 

11 portfolio standard of 18 percent by 2021. Right 

12 now, we're currently at 4 percent. So that means 

13 we have a long way to go in 6 years. 

14 Realistically, it's probably not going to happen 

15 through building out new systems. Just think 

16 about how big of a gap that is. 

17 We got to 4 percent over 15 years, 

18 something like that, so that's a lot to do in 6 

19 years. 

20 I feel like I'm kind of uniquely 

21 positioned to comment on the Clean Power Plan 

22 because I did work in oil and gas for a long 
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1 time. I grew up in South Louisiana, which is a 

2 very heavy oil and gas area. 

3 I'll tell you a little bit about the 

4 legacy of oil and gas in my state. Everyone 

5 knows about the great BP Gulf spill and how that 

6 really helped us out. So not only did we lose 

7 revenue from traditional forms of income, such as 

8 fishing, we also lost potential ecotourism. 

9 There's still cleanup issues going on. There's 

10 still issues in the courthouses going on. 

11 Hundreds of miles of unique wetland habitat were 

12 destroyed by dredging in Louisiana. 

13 If you look at maps over the time, over 

14 the last hundred years, you can see just the 

15 impact of just unmitigated, you know, destruction 

16 of wetlands, and it's really an ecosystem that's 

17 not going to come back. 

18 There's tons of refineries, cancer 

19 clusters, and all these great oil and gas jobs 

20 are here today and gone tomorrow. So that's the 

21 legacy of oil and gas in my state where I grew 

22 up. 
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1 I've been a resident of PA for 7 years, 

2 and I think right now I'd like to tell you the 

3 tale of two states, and I want to talk about New 

4 York and Pennsylvania. 

5 What's going on in New York is really 

6 exciting, the REV program, where they're doing 

7 what Eric Casteel, who I know outside of this 

8 room, has talked about, where they're reexamining 

9 their grid. They are implementing distributed -- 

10 plans for distributed energy generation plus 

11 storage, so they're making a smart grid. They're 

12 rolling out incentives to develop community solar 

13 projects to help provide renewable energy to 

14 people that are not necessarily middle class, but 

15 should have access to that as well. 

16 If you drive from here to Buffalo, you're 

17 going to see a ton of micro wind installations 

18 all along the Interstate. Solar City is building 

19 a solar panel manufacturing facility in Buffalo, 

20 and in general, it's creating a lot of jobs and 

21 creating a lot of opportunities in New York. 

22 Let's talk about what you're seeing in 
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1 Pennsylvania, the legacy of coal mining in this 

2 state, acid mine runoff. Go drive 60 miles west 

3 of here. Ride your bike along the Ghost Town 

4 Trail. You're going to see a big orange creek. 

5 That's not natural. There's nothing living in 

6 that creek. That's the legacy of coal mining in 

7 this state. 

8 Right now, jobs are being slashed in the 

9 oil and gas industry. The company that I last 

10 worked for in oil and gas, Noble Energy, just 

11 laid off 45 people in their Marcellus shale 

12 business unit this past Tuesday. 

13 There are many, many other layoffs and 

14 bankruptcies going on right now. In the state of 

15 Pennsylvania, there are at least 200,000 

16 abandoned and orphaned oil and gas wells. There 

17 may be up to 500,000. No one really knows 

18 because the department that oversees that is 

19 underfunded. Those wells, according to a study 

20 done by Princeton University, Mary Kang, leaked 4 

21 to 7 percent of the -- this is complicated. 

22 Current total anthropogenic methane emissions in 
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1 this state, 4 to 7 percent from abandoned wells. 

2 I've been out there and seen these wells 

3 in person as a former employee of the oil and gas 

4 industry. 

5 So going a little bit further out, let's 

6 talk about the legacy of coal mining in West 

7 Virginia with mountaintop removal. These 

8 ecosystems aren't coming back. It's a one-time 

9 use for a renewable energy -- or for a 

10 traditional form of energy. You clear-cut. You 

11 get rid of the mountain. There's nothing left. 

12 You use the coal. There's nothing left. 

13 Sorry. That's my time. 

14 I just want to end with one quite from 

15 William Gibson, an author. 

16 MR. KOERBER: Feel free to continue, sir. 

17 MR. BARRY: Okay. The future is already 

18 here. It's just not very evenly distributed, 

19 okay? And what I mean by that is countries like 

20 Costa Rica are already at a 100 percent renewable 

21 energy standard. Denmark has met this year 

22 national demands on certain days by just wind 
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1 production alone. Germany is about 31 percent 

2 net electric consumption from solar. California 

3 just set out a renewable energy portfolio 

4 standard of 50 percent. 

5 I was just on the phone with someone at 

6 ConnEdison last week -- or sorry -- this week, 

7 and it looks like New York is going to set a 50 

8 percent renewable energy portfolio standard. 

9 That's exciting. P&E needs to catch up. We need 

10 more of it here. We've got a long way to go. 

11 And thank you for your time. 

12 MR. KOERBER: Thank you so much, sir, for 

13 being here today. Appreciate it. 

14 MR. BARRY: All right. Any questions or 

15 anything? 

16 MR. KOERBER: I don't. Thank you. 

17 MR. BARRY: All right. Thanks. 

18 MR. KOERBER: Thank you. 

19 Next, I'd like to call Cassi Steenblok. 

20 Good morning, Ms. Steenblok. Thank you 

21 for being here today. 

22 MS. STEENBLOK: Good morning. Thank you 
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1 for having me. My name is Cassi Steenblok, 

2 C-a-s-s-I, S-t-e-e-n-b-l-o-k. 

3 I'm here as a resident of Pittsburgh, but 

4 I'm also here today as program organizer for 

5 Clean Water Action, representing more than 35,000 

6 members in Western Pennsylvania. 

7 Clean Water Action works with diverse 

8 people and groups or protect our environment, 

9 health, economic well-being, and community 

10 quality of life. We make democracy work for all. 

11 Each year, our members vote on the 

12 issues. They want us to prioritize the issues 

13 that they want us to work on in that upcoming 

14 year. For the past 5 years, one of the highest 

15 priorities for our members has been promoting 

16 clean renewable energy and combatting climate 

17 change. 

18 In the past few years, that priority has 

19 been climbing. It's now the second most voted on 

20 priority for our members. 

21 In Clean Water Action, we know that 

22 climate change presents a clear and present 
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1 danger to human health and the environment. Here 

2 in Western Pennsylvania, we have some of the 

3 worst air quality in the country, landing 

4 ourselves on the top 10 worst lists year after 

5 year. Emissions from coal-fired power plants, 

6 like the Cheswick Power Station, send toxic 

7 chemicals and soot into our air that are directly 

8 linked to asthma, heart disease, and cancer. 

9 Recent studies have shown that here in 

10 Western Pennsylvania, we rank in some of the 

11 worst places to live if you are suffering from 

12 asthma, and we have cancer rates twice the 

13 national average. This is no surprise if you 

14 talk to residents living in these affected 

15 communities. They either suffer from asthma or 

16 cancer themselves or have family members and 

17 friends who do. It's a problem that directly 

18 affects every single person here in the region. 

19 To combat this problem, Clean Water 

20 Action and our canvass has worked on multiple 

21 campaigns over the past few years that would work 

22 to reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants, 
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1 ensuring that toxic chemicals are not emitted 

2 into our water or air. 

3 We collected more than a thousand letters 

4 and postcards from members on this very campaign. 

5 Our most recent campaign from this summer 

6 was to urge the state of Pennsylvania to 

7 prioritize clean energy programs in their budget, 

8 such as wind and solar power, to move away from 

9 our dependence on fossil fuels. That is why we 

10 support the Clean Power Plan and are so thankful 

11 to the EPA on working on affluent limits. This 

12 plan provides clear standards of performance for 

13 limiting carbon pollution and allows flexibility 

14 for the states to achieve these standards. 

15 Under the current plan, states will be 

16 able to design a cost effective way to reduce 

17 carbon pollution, modernize their energy systems, 

18 and create jobs in the clean energy sector. This 

19 is something that Pennsylvania desperately needs, 

20 as we heard from our last speaker. We're 

21 woefully behind in clean energy. 

22 We also need a federal plan that puts 
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1 protections in place swiftly when a state 

2 declines to protect its citizens from the 

3 extensive carbon pollution from its smokestacks. 

4 Climate safeguards cannot wait, and neither can 

5 this Clean Power Plan. 

6 Our members are Clean Water Action 

7 recognize that this is a common-sense step to 

8 address the overwhelming need to combat climate 

9 change. We need to act, and we need to act fast. 

10 Finalize these limits to protect our environment, 

11 our public health, and our future. 

12 Thank you. 

13 MR. KOERBER: Thank you so much for being 

14 here today. 

15 MS. STEENBLOK: Thank you. 

16 MR. KOERBER: I see no other speakers -- 

17 oh, yes, we do. Come on down. 

18 Good morning. I don't have your name 

19 here. So if you could state your name and spell 

20 it for the record, I would appreciate it. 

21 MS. LUISI: Sure. My name is Marian 

22 Luisi, M-a-r-i-a-n. Luisi is L-u-i-s-i. 
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1 I'm a citizen of Pittsburgh, belong to 

2 Green for All, and just as a citizen, I wanted to 

3 express my concern that although the CPP does 

4 mandate that we reduce our carbon energy 

5 emissions by 37 percent, I believe, for our 

6 state, I don't believe that that can efficiently 

7 be done by just reducing or increasing the 

8 efficiency of our gas and oil output. 

9 I wanted to state my concern and advocate 

10 that we make investments in renewable clean 

11 energy, wind and solar, that there are some 

12 numerable benefits, I mean, in terms of 

13 health-reducing, socioeconomic issues allowing 

14 those in poverty to have better access to jobs 

15 because the jobs in renewable and clean energy 

16 from what I have been reading and have statistics 

17 for require less education and pay above the 

18 median average of jobs that are in the market 

19 now. 

20 Solar energy has brought 20 percent 

21 increase in job availability nationwide, and over 

22 the past 2 years, they have grown nearly 10 times 
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1 faster than jobs in the rest of the economy. 

2 Clean energy investments create three 

3 times as many jobs as fossil fuel industries, and 

4 the green jobs tend to pay more. That will allow 

5 a recipe for escaping poverty for Hispanics and 

6 minorities that are affected health-wise, as well 

7 as economically. 

8 Renewable energy sources are increasingly 

9 competitive. Everybody used to say they were 

10 very expensive to produce and create, and they 

11 are becoming more competitive in terms of 

12 comparison to fossil fuels on cost, and 

13 installation capacity is growing. 

14 Just last year, the number of people 

15 working in solar surpassed the number of people 

16 employed as coal miners. In fact, solar is 

17 growing, as I said, 20 times faster than the 

18 broader economy. 

19 I think that it's time that we start 

20 thinking long term and looking towards our future 

21 for our grandchildren and their children, and gas 

22 and oil isn't going to be available for us all 
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1 the -- I mean, shale, it's a finite resource. 

2 It's not renewable. So, at some point, we're 

3 going to have to either do without electricity or 

4 change the way we think and move away from the 

5 status quo. 

6 I just wanted to express my concern, and 

7 I appreciate your time. Thank you. 

8 MR. KOERBER: We appreciate you being 

9 here today. Thank you. 

10 Seeing no other speakers, we'll take a 

11 short recess. 

12 [Recess taken from 11:25 a.m. to 12 

13 noon.] 

14 MR. KOERBER: The time is 12 p.m. I'll 

15 reopen the session. We have no more registered 

16 speakers, so we will adjourn for lunch. We will 

17 get started again at 1 p.m. Thank you. 

18 [Recess taken from 12 noon to 1 p.m.] 

19 MR. CAMPBELL: I call the public hearing 

20 back in session. Good afternoon. My name is 

21 David Campbell with the U.S. Environmental 

22 Protection Agency, and I am the Chair of today's 
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1 public hearing on the proposed federal plan and 

2 model rules for the Clean Power Plan for existing 

3 power plants. Thank you for coming here today to 

4 join us. 

5 Joining me on the panel today are Emily 

6 Linn and Robert Stoltzfus. 

7 Fossil fuel-fired power plants are the 

8 largest source of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, 

9 or carbon pollution, accounting for 31 percent of 

10 U.S. total greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing 

11 carbon pollution from power plants is an 

12 essential step in lessening the impacts of 

13 climate change and providing a more certain 

14 future for our environment, our health, and 

15 future generations. 

16 We are here today to listen to your 

17 comments on the EPA's proposed federal plan and 

18 model rule to implement the Clean Power Plan for 

19 existing power plants. 

20 The proposed federal plans will achieve 

21 the same levels of emissions performance as 

22 required of state plans under the Clean Power 
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1 Plan. Federal plans will be finalized only for 

2 those states with affected electric generating 

3 units, or EGUs, that the EPA determines have 

4 failed to submit an approvable 111(d) state plan 

5 by the relevant deadline set in the emission 

6 guidelines. 

7 In those states where a federal plan may 

8 be required, a final federal plan will implement 

9 the same emission guidelines for affected power 

10 plants outlined in the Clean Power Plan. It 

11 would not require additional control requirements 

12 or impose additional costs. 

13 Even where a federal plan is put in place 

14 for a particular state, that state will still be 

15 able to submit a plan which, if approved, will 

16 allow the state and its sources to exit the 

17 federal plan. States may take delegation of 

18 administrative aspects of the federal plan in 

19 order to become the primary implementers or 

20 submit partial state plans in order to take over 

21 the implementation of a portion of a federal 

22 plan. States operating under a federal plan may 
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1 adopt complementary measures outside of the plan 

2 to facilitate compliance and lower cost to the 

3 benefit of power generators and consumers. 

4 The proposal also includes as a model 

5 rule for those states that are developing their 

6 own state plans. The EPA intends to finalize 

7 both the rate-based and mass-spaced model trading 

8 rules in Summer 2016. 

9 A state program that adheres to the model 

10 trading rule provisions specified in the 

11 rulemaking, when final, would be presumptively 

12 approvable. There are stand-alone portions of 

13 the model trading rules, such as the evaluation, 

14 measurement, and verification procedures for 

15 emission rate credits, or ERCs, that would be 

16 approvable even if a state adopted an approach 

17 that differs in other respects from the model 

18 rule. 

19 In addition, the proposal contains a 

20 finding that it is necessary or appropriate to 

21 implement a Section 111(d) federal plan for the 

22 affected electric generating units, located in 
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1 Indian Country. CO2 emissions performance rates 

2 for these facilities were finalized in the Clean 

3 Power Plan. 

4 Information on how the EPA will reach out 

5 to communities throughout the comment period in 

6 an overview of the actions that EPA is taking to 

7 ensure that vulnerable communities are not being 

8 disproportionately impacted by this rulemaking. 

9 If you would like more details on the 

10 proposed rule, there are fact sheets available at 

11 the registration desk. 

12 Before we get started, I'd like to go 

13 through a few housekeeping items and ground rules 

14 that will help make today's hearing run smoothly. 

15 First, please be sure that you have 

16 checked in at the registration desk, even if you 

17 are not planning to speak today, and if you 

18 signed up to speak online or by phone but haven't 

19 told us that you are here, please step out to the 

20 registration desk and let the EPA staff know that 

21 you have arrived. 

22 I will call speakers up. When your name 
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1 is called, please come to the speakers table at 

2 the front of the room. When I call you to speak, 

3 please state your name and spell it for the court 

4 reporter. Your comments will be transcribed and 

5 included in the record of comments on the 

6 proposed rule. 

7 Each speaker will have 5 minutes to give 

8 comments. We have a timer to help you know how 

9 much time you have left to speak. When you see 

10 the yellow folder, that means you have 1 minute 

11 remaining. When you see the red folder, that's a 

12 signal that you are at 5 minutes and it is time 

13 to stop. When you have finished speaking, please 

14 remain at the table until the person next to you 

15 has completed his or her testimony. 

16 We are here to listen to you today; 

17 however, panel members may ask questions to 

18 clarify your questions -- or comments. Excuse 

19 me. 

20 I will then call up the next speaker and 

21 so on. If you have brought a written copy of 

22 your testimony, please give that to the staff at 
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1 the registration desk before you leave today, if 

2 you wish. 

3 We will put any written comments 

4 submitted today in the official docket for the 

5 proposed rule. We also have comment cards 

6 available at the registration desk if you would 

7 like to submit additional written comments today. 

8 If you want to comment in writing later, stop by 

9 the materials table near the registration desk, 

10 and pick up a copy of instructions for submitting 

11 written comments. 

12 Comments must be received by January 

13 21st, 2016. Let me assure you that EPA gives 

14 just as much consideration to comments we receive 

15 in writing as we do to comments we receive at 

16 public hearings like this one. So if you have 

17 more comments that you would like to provide the 

18 EPA, please submit them by the comment period 

19 deadline, January 21st, 2016. Your comments will 

20 be reviewed. 

21 If you have any questions during the day, 

22 please see the staff at the registration desk, 
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1 and someone will assist you. 

2 Thank you again for taking the time today 

3 to share your comments on the EPA's proposal. 

4 Let's begin. 

5 I would like to call Will Bittinger to 

6 testify. Yep. Again, please state your name, 

7 and spell it for the court reporter. 

8 MR. BITTINGER: Hi. Good afternoon. My 

9 name is Will Bittinger, W-i-l-l, B as in boy, 

10 i-t-t-i-n as in Nancy, g-e-r. 

11 Thank you. The EPA's Clean Power Plan is 

12 a vital step forward to help address global 

13 warming that will yield benefits of 26- to $45 

14 billion annually once fully implemented. 

15 In particular, it is expected to save 

16 3,600 lives each year and prevent 90,000 asthma 

17 attacks annually. The Environmental Defense Fund 

18 thanks EPA for finalizing these historic carbon 

19 pollution limits that help address our nation's 

20 single largest source of carbon pollution. 

21 EDF encourages states to seize the 

22 opportunity they have under the CPP to develop 
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1 their own state plans, tailored to their unique 

2 opportunities for innovation and cost savings. 

3 We encourage EPA to finalize the model rule 

4 frameworks just as soon as possible to help 

5 support smart state planning efforts. 

6 In particular, we strongly encourage EPA 

7 to consider whether some components of the model 

8 rules can be finalized shortly after the comment 

9 period closes in order to provide states even 

10 more clarity as they work to develop their plans. 

11 Standardized model rules will provide 

12 important guidance to states and help them 

13 develop strong plans that ensure environmental 

14 integrity. Model rule frameworks can help cut 

15 down on the administrative work necessary for 

16 states, allowing states to focus on the 

17 customizable components of their implementation 

18 effort that are most important to their 

19 stakeholders. 

20 In addition, finalized model rules will 

21 help facilitate interstate trading by doing the 

22 heavy lifting on detailed underpinnings of 
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1 emissions trading programs, which can help drive 

2 innovation and cost savings. In particular, the 

3 trading-ready feature of the model rules provides 

4 an important opportunity for states to adopt a 

5 state plan that is compatible with others. 

6 Should states decline to carry out their 

7 responsibilities to protect human health and the 

8 environment from damaging carbon pollution, it is 

9 EPA's responsibility to do so. This is the 

10 compelling bipartisan vision of the Clean Air Act 

11 that all Americans are entitled to the 

12 protections of clean air under the law. To 

13 realize that vision, EPA must ensure that 

14 real-world emissions reductions are secured when 

15 states decline to do so. 

16 EDF urges EPA to finalize a federal plan 

17 that puts federal protections in place swiftly 

18 when a state declines to act. We are in a race 

19 against time, and climate safeguards cannot wait. 

20 Moreover, swiftly understanding the federal plan 

21 parameters will provide important certainty for 

22 businesses. 
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1 In addition, we support EPA's proposal to 

2 issue a federal plan for any state that does not 

3 meet one of the interim state planning 

4 milestones. We urge EPA to do so within 1 year 

5 or less. It is also essential that EPA ensure a 

6 federal plan as promptly issued in cases where a 

7 state is not implementing its plan and fails to 

8 take corrective action. This federal plan must 

9 fully account for any foregone emissions 

10 reductions. 

11 We also urge EPA to put in place 

12 effective federal limits on carbon pollution when 

13 a state declines to carry out its 

14 responsibilities. That means EPA must adopt 

15 enforceable limits on the volume of climate 

16 pollution discharge by affected power plants and 

17 ensure that such limits are accompanied by strong 

18 measures to ensure that these limits are not 

19 circumvented and generate real reductions across 

20 the power sector. 

21 Any finalized federal plan should be 

22 trading-ready, so companies can retain maximum 
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1 flexibility to secure least-cost emissions 

2 reductions. 

3 Furthermore, even in the context of a 

4 federal plan, EPA should offer opportunities to 

5 work in partnership with the state. For example, 

6 EPA can allow a state to customize certain 

7 modular elements of the federal plan, so long as 

8 it does not undermine environmental integrity. 

9 In addition, EPA could allow a state to 

10 carry out implementation and enforcement of the 

11 federal plan. 

12 Moreover, a state should always have the 

13 option to step in and replace federal control 

14 with an individualized state plan. 

15 We urge EPA to finalize its Clean Energy 

16 Incentive Program. It is essential that there 

17 are incentives for early action to reduce carbon 

18 pollution before the 2022 start of the Clean 

19 Power Plan, so that we can continue the progress 

20 America is already making to address carbon 

21 pollution from the electricity sector. 

22 We support EPA's commitment to design the 
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1 CEIP to encourage additional reductions and not 

2 reduce program stringency. In addition, EPA 

3 should take care in laying out its definition of 

4 low-income efficiency, supporting authentic 

5 community engagement in CEIP design processes, 

6 and providing appropriate technical guidance in 

7 order to ensure the programs are judiciously 

8 targeted and fully leveraged to benefit 

9 low-income communities. 

10 Thank you. 

11 MR. CAMPBELL: Thank you, Mr. Bittinger. 

12 I have one clarifying question, I guess. 

13 MR. BITTINGER: Sure. 

14 MR. CAMPBELL: Earlier in your testimony, 

15 you indicated that you were urging EPA to swiftly 

16 act on the model rules, and you suggested if 

17 certain portions were able to be released sooner 

18 than others. Do you have any particular sections 

19 or provisions that you thought would be more 

20 useful to be issued or addressed earlier than the 

21 entire rule? 

22 MR. BITTINGER: I don't have that 
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1 information right now, but EDF may speak to that 

2 later on in the commenting process. 

3 MR. CAMPBELL: Okay. Thank you. Thank 

4 you for your testimony today. 

5 MR. BITTINGER: Sure. 

6 MR. CAMPBELL: I am going to now call the 

7 next pair of speakers. Sarah Sanfilippo and 

8 Stanley Kabala. 

9 And, again, Sarah, please state your 

10 name, and then spell it for the court reporter, 

11 and then, Mr. Kabala, you will follow. 

12 MS. SANFILIPPO: Hi. My name is Sarah 

13 Sanfilippo, S-a-r-a-h, and Sanfilippo, S-a-n-f as 

14 in Frank, i-l-i-p-p-o. 

15 So I am here today on behalf of Women for 

16 a Healthy Environment, located in Pittsburgh 

17 Pennsylvania. Our mission is to educate and 

18 empower women and those who love them to act as 

19 ambassadors about environmental risks. 

20 We carry out this mission by educating 

21 the public about environmental exposures that 

22 impact public health. Further, we advocate for 
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1 policy solutions that improve the quality of life 

2 for ourselves and our region, such as the one we 

3 are discussing here today. And lastly, we are a 

4 member of a coalition in Southwestern 

5 Pennsylvania that is working together to clean up 

6 our air for the health of our families and 

7 economy. 

8 Women for a Healthy Environment strongly 

9 supports the proposed Clean Power Plan for 

10 existing power plants. Carbon is the single 

11 largest contributing source of U.S. greenhouse 

12 gas emissions. These emissions come from various 

13 sources but most noticeably from the production 

14 and consumption of cement, iron, steel, and 

15 chemicals. 

16 Carbon emissions go through a slow 

17 process in which they are transferred and 

18 absorbed into the atmosphere, making carbon the 

19 primary driver of global warming. 

20 Since the industrial revolution, 

21 human-related sources have been responsible for 

22 carbon emissions and the increase of emissions in 
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1 the atmosphere. In 2013, carbon dioxide 

2 accounted for 82 percent of all of U.S.'s 

3 greenhouse gases, which we know leads to an 

4 increase in climate. 

5 2014 was the hottest recorded year in 

6 history, and 14 or the 15 hottest recorded years 

7 in the history were in the 21st century alone. 

8 The risks of climate change are already damaging. 

9 Imagine how damaging it will be for our kids and 

10 grandkids if we don't make the change now. 

11 In particular, there are vulnerable 

12 populations, such as the elderly, those with 

13 heart and lung diseases, and especially our 

14 children that need protection. 

15 Climate change is responsible for several 

16 health-related issues associated with heatwaves 

17 and droughts, smog, extreme events like 

18 hurricanes and flooding, as well as ticks and 

19 mosquitoes, which can lead to Lyme disease and 

20 West Nile Virus. 

21 The health impacts are many, but just a 

22 few are heat-related illness and death, increased 
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1 rates and new cases of allergy and asthma 

2 symptoms, increased mental stress, increases in 

3 respiratory and cardiac disease, and impacts to 

4 our food system, the basic building block on 

5 which we live, grow, and thrive. 

6 The Clean Power Plan is the first-ever 

7 limit on carbon pollution for existing power 

8 plants. This is the first step toward mitigating 

9 climate change and improving air quality. As 

10 reported by the Union of Concerned Scientists, 

11 under the Clean Air Act, passed in 1973 and 

12 amended in 1990, improvements have already been 

13 made. The Clean Power Plan can further these 

14 accomplishments and continue to reduce the 

15 negative health effects associated with climate 

16 change. 

17 A three-part study conducted by 

18 scientists from Harvard School of Public Health, 

19 the Public's Health at Boston University, and 

20 Syracuse University analyzed three different 

21 scenarios in the impact on clean air and public 

22 health. Their findings were published previous 
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1 to the introduction of the Clean Power Plan, but 

2 it was found the scenario most similar to this 

3 plan depicted the greatest magnitude of estimated 

4 health benefits. 

5 This can be seen as reassurance that the 

6 Clean Power Plan is taking a step forward in the 

7 right direction. Benefits such as thousands of 

8 premature deaths and hospitalizations prevented, 

9 in addition to reduced asthma symptoms, 

10 illustrate the health gains we can yield. 

11 Pennsylvania specifically is one of 12 

12 states with persistent air quality problems 

13 associated with power plant pollution. Because 

14 of this, Pennsylvania is also one of three 

15 states, along with Texas and Ohio, that would 

16 realize the greatest health gains from the Clean 

17 Power Plan. 

18 This plan also ensures the most effective 

19 plans per state allowing tailored plans specific 

20 to each region. This promotes meaningful 

21 engagement with low-income and minority 

22 communities, which are at greatest risk, while 
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1 developing plans to implement carbon emission 

2 regulations. 

3 African American children are two times 

4 as likely to be hospitalized for asthma. Latino 

5 children are 40 percent more likely to die from 

6 this. By implementing the regulations the CPP 

7 places, up to 90,000 asthma attacks and 300,000 

8 days of missed school and work can be prevented 

9 per year by 2030. 

10 The less time and money spent at the 

11 doctors or less time sick is more time our 

12 children and future generations can spend 

13 reaching their full potential. 

14 We know that there is only linkage 

15 between poor air quality and adverse health 

16 conditions, and we must look to the leadership of 

17 the EPA to safeguard public health and the 

18 environment. 

19 Women for a Healthy Environment applauds 

20 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for 

21 proposing a strong rule to control carbon 

22 pollution. The proposed control methods are 
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1 sensible and cost effective. It is vital that 

2 the EPA takes a leadership role on this issue and 

3 to also continue to work with states while 

4 creating clear guidelines and effective 

5 methodologies. 

6 We are counting on you to protect our 

7 children and their future by placing strong 

8 federal controls on carbon pollution for existing 

9 power plants. With the adoption of this 

10 rulemaking, EPA has the chance to make a positive 

11 impact and improve the health of those living in 

12 our region and across the country. 

13 Thank you. 

14 MR. CAMPBELL: Thank you, Ms. Sanfilippo. 

15 Dr. Kabala? 

16 DR. KABALA: My name is Stan Kabala. 

17 That is Stanley J. Kabala. It's spelled 

18 S-t-a-n-l-e-y, middle initial J, and the last 

19 name, Kabala, K-a-b as in boy, a-l-a. My 

20 affiliation is with the Center for Environmental 

21 Research and Education at Duquesne University, 

22 here in Pittsburgh, but at this moment, I am 
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1 representing myself. 

2 And I have come here today to voice my 

3 support of the EPA-proposed Clean Power Plan, 

4 which aims to cut carbon emissions from the 

5 dirtiest power plants, 30 percent, by the year 

6 2030. 

7 I will say at the outset that this 

8 significant goal is a critical first step, but 

9 only a critical first step in reaching the real 

10 and necessary goal of an 80 percent reduction of 

11 carbon emissions in the U.S. and the world by the 

12 year 2050. 

13 I'd like to make six points -- one 

14 technological, three economic, and three ethical 

15 -- all interrelated. I will begin and end, as 

16 you will see, with the ethical points. 

17 I am here in a couple of capacities. 

18 Yes, I'm a Ph.D., but I'm also, as I say, 

19 demographically correct. Polish immigrant, coal 

20 miner, and Slovenian coal miner grandfathers, and 

21 a father who was a steelworker. Go figure. 

22 That's the way it seems to have worked. 
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1 But my primary motivation is the fact 

2 that I have four grandchildren, all under the age 

3 of 7, and to put it bluntly, I'm not inclined to 

4 have this country foist onto my grandchildren and 

5 any other grandchildren, the cost of repairing 

6 the damage my generation will have done to the 

7 climate and, by extension, our economy, our 

8 towns, and our cities. 

9 I don't want to foot the bill -- I don't 

10 want them to foot the bill for our, my prosperous 

11 life. I would like my generation to pay its own 

12 way and leave the prosperity equally accessible 

13 for all those children. 

14 Now, my technological point is that we 

15 have right now the technologies required to 

16 attain the carbon reduction goal. It is closely 

17 bound up with my first economic point. Together, 

18 they are striking, at least to me. 

19 The real goal, as I've noted, is that 

20 target of reducing to 80 percent of 1990 goals by 

21 2050. This major reduction can be achieved, and 

22 I point out to a new economic analysis by ICF 
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1 International that used data from a report 

2 entitled "Pathways to Deep Carbonization in the 

3 United States," done by Energy Environment and 

4 Economics, the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, 

5 the Pacific Northwest National Lab, showing that 

6 if the U.S. were to act aggressively from now 

7 through 2030 to 2050 on investing in 

8 energy-efficiency renewable energy and clean 

9 electric vehicles, this is what could occur. 

10 More than a million jobs would be created by 

11 2030, and up to 2 million by 2050; among them, 

12 1.2 million jobs in the construction sector 

13 needed for this infrastructure strange. 

14 The GDP of the U.S. would go up .6 

15 percent by 2050 to $145 billion and $280 billion 

16 by 2050. Disposable income would go up by as 

17 much as $300 to $600 per household, and energy 

18 bills would go down. In fact, according to this 

19 study, by 2030, right around the corner, $5.3 

20 billion and $41 billion by 2050. 

21 My second economic point -- excuse me -- 

22 raises two ethical points. That positive 
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1 economic analysis simply cannot be undertaken in 

2 a way that harms or burdens some people for the 

3 common good of the rest of us. Special attention 

4 must be paid to creating an effective transition 

5 program for workers in the fossil fuel industries 

6 who are most assuredly to be displaced from 

7 current employee. This means retooling and 

8 retaining highly skilled workers for high-paying 

9 jobs in a low-carbon U.S. economy. 

10 I remember what happened when the heart 

11 of the U.S. steel industry was cut out, and the 

12 industry collapsed here in Southwestern 

13 Pennsylvania in the 1970s and '80s. The ensuing 

14 unemployment and loss of tax revenue devastated 

15 lives, households, communities, and businesses, 

16 and the region needed 25 years to recover from 

17 that economic disaster. 

18 That same catastrophe could be visited on 

19 those workers in industries in decline in a 

20 low-carbon economy in the coal and power 

21 industries in particular, and it would devastate 

22 their communities. That cannot be allowed to 
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1 happen. The burden must be shared equally, but 

2 there's a way around it. 

3 And I'll be quick in this. This 

4 momentous carbon cutting that must engage cannot 

5 be allowed to jeopardize low- and moderate-income 

6 Americans, and in a word, the solution is what 

7 has been called a "cap-and-trade program," three 

8 steps, a climate avoidance cap of carbon 

9 emission, taxation of all fossil fuels at point 

10 of origin with a federal revenue-neutral tax that 

11 will both drive the market away from use of the 

12 fossil fuels and stimulate innovation and 

13 alternatives. And simply put, it's a case of the 

14 more fossil fuel you use, the more you pay. That 

15 will spur both change sin use and in innovation. 

16 And, finally, a large share of the 

17 garnered revenue -- revenue garnered from the tax 

18 will then be distributed on a per capita basis to 

19 every adult American with the remainder invested 

20 in carbon energy innovation -- carbon-free energy 

21 innovation, thus, offsetting the financial burden 

22 of higher fossil fuel prices. 
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1 In a word, it's selling -- renting the 

2 atmosphere of the United States, which we all 

3 own, in the same way that Alaskans allow folks to 

4 drill for oil and get a check every year back by 

5 way of the Alaskan government. Same principle. 

6 The key is to keep innovation moving while 

7 avoiding a burden on those who can't afford the 

8 burden that would be, indeed, placed on them by 

9 higher fossil fuel prices. 

10 And thank you very much for the 

11 opportunity to speak here today. 

12 MR. CAMPBELL: Thank you, Mr. Kabala. 

13 Thank you for your time. Thank you for your 

14 testimony. 

15 We will recess the hearing until the next 

16 speakers are prepared to address the hearing. 

17 [Recess taken from 1:22 to 1:24 p.m.] 

18 MR. CAMPBELL: I call the session -- 

19 hearing back into session. 

20 Ms. Myers, would you like to address the 

21 panel, please. 

22 MS. MYERS: Yeah. Hello. My name is 
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1 Jennifer Myers. Do you want me to spell it? 

2 [No audible response.] 

3 MS. MYERS: Okay. J-e-n-n-i-f-e-r, 

4 Meyers, M-y-e-r-s. 

5 I'm here to speak as a citizen of 

6 Pittsburgh in the United States and in support of 

7 a group of -- an organization that I care a lot 

8 about, Green for All, a nationwide group 

9 mobilizing to help low-income communities and 

10 empower themselves and transform America into a 

11 green energy-leading country for other countries 

12 to look at. 

13 And I was actually recently made aware of 

14 the Clean Power Plan. I had known about it when 

15 it came out in August, when the President 

16 announced it with the EPA and was really excited 

17 about it -- and still am, but feel that it's 

18 action that's taken now that -- the more action 

19 we can take now, the better we'll be in the 

20 future. So it's good to see that we're pushing 

21 forward and trying to create this. 

22 I'm a little worried about the time 
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1 frame, but I think everything is -- if it's 

2 moving forward, it's good. It's positive. 

3 So just a few of the talking points I 

4 wanted to reiterate to you all today -- thank you 

5 for hearing me -- were the main points about how 

6 the federal plan is, I think as far as I 

7 understand, going to be like a great model for 

8 other states -- for states to follow if they 

9 don't have their own plan in place, and I think 

10 that the federal plan needs to take into 

11 consideration the effect that climate change has 

12 on low-income communities and how much harder 

13 those communities get hit and try to really -- I 

14 don't know if this is something that the EPA can 

15 do, but try to really improve access to renewable 

16 energy and get that sector moving as fast as 

17 possible, especially for those communities where 

18 we can see like great growth and new jobs taking 

19 place. 

20 I'm sure, as you are all aware, how the 

21 Clean Power Plan affects low-income communities 

22 is that just in terms of numbers, it's preventing 
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1 3,500 premature deaths per year and more than 

2 1,000 heart attacks and hospitalizations from air 

3 pollution-related illness, preventing 140,000 to 

4 150,000 asthma attacks in children. 

5 Forty percent of the 6 million Americans 

6 living in close proximity to a coal plant are 

7 people of color. One in six African American 

8 kids has asthma compared with one in ten 

9 nationwide. 

10 So it's just -- for me sitting here 

11 addressing you, it's just to congratulate you and 

12 help -- and support this plan, which I am so 

13 excited about, and try to just think that it's 

14 not just putting emissions on power -- or limits 

15 on power plants, which sadly have none right now, 

16 which I was unaware of that. That's really 

17 unbelievable to me and outrageous that they have 

18 no limits right now, but the fact that we are 

19 putting limits, that's great, but also to think 

20 about this plan as how can we push green energy 

21 jobs as much as possible, like really push that. 

22 And that's all I really wanted to say, 
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1 and I appreciate your time. 

2 MR. CAMPBELL: Thank you, Ms. Myers, for 

3 your testimony. Thanks for your time today. 

4 MS. MYERS: Thank you. 

5 MR. CAMPBELL: The hearing will now be in 

6 temporary recess until we have another speaker. 

7 [Recess taken from 1:28 to 1:42 p.m.] 

8 MR. CAMPBELL: I call the hearing back 

9 into session, and we'll call the next speaker 

10 whenever she's ready. 

11 Good afternoon, Ms. Sage. Please state 

12 your name, and spell it for the court reporter, 

13 please. 

14 MS. SAGE: Okay. My name is Heather 

15 Sage, S-a-g-e. 

16 Good afternoon. My name is Heather Sage, 

17 and I reside in Pittsburgh. 

18 As a woman and a mother of a nearly 

19 7-year-old daughter, the future of our air 

20 quality and our surrounding environment is of 

21 critical importance to me and my family on a 

22 daily basis. I firmly support the implementation 
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1 of the Clean Power Plan, as it is known, and hope 

2 that it is as protective to human health and our 

3 air, water, and land as possible. 

4 We need to move swiftly and seriously in 

5 a national direction toward safe, clean, 

6 renewable, and healthy forms of generating energy 

7 while at the same time heavily investing in 

8 practices that safe energy and use it more 

9 efficiently. 

10 As a professional, I've spent most of my 

11 career focused on supporting policies and 

12 practices that do just that. Requiring that 

13 power generation be cleaner has a multitude of 

14 co-benefits: dramatic decreases in greenhouse 

15 gas emissions from the power sector, huge savings 

16 for ratepayers like me, many more jobs, and 

17 incredible changes and improvements to public 

18 health. 

19 Pittsburgh's air quality is among the 

20 poorest in the nation, despite visible and 

21 important improvements, and as a result, our 

22 children suffer heavily from chronic asthma. Our 
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1 most vulnerable people die at higher rates than 

2 in most cities, and for many days during hot 

3 weather, which has, of course, continued to trend 

4 hotter, it is truly unsafe for many of us to be 

5 outdoors or for any of us to recreate. 

6 For my daughter's future and for the 

7 future of her peers, I support this plan. 

8 Thank you. 

9 MR. CAMPBELL: Thank you for your time 

10 today. Thank you for your testimony. 

11 MS. SAGE: I have comments written. 

12 MR. CAMPBELL: You may provide a copy to 

13 him, and please leave one at the registration 

14 desk on your way out. 

15 MS. SAGE: Okay. Thanks. 

16 MR. CAMPBELL: Thank you again. 

17 MS. SAGE: Thanks for your time. I hope 

18 it livens up a bit. 

19 MR. CAMPBELL: The hearing will now be in 

20 temporary recess until we have another speaker. 

21 [Recess from 1:44 to 1:54 p.m.] 

22 MR. CAMPBELL: I call this public hearing 
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1 back into session. We'll now have the next 

2 speaker. 

3 Mr. Horchner, please state and spell your 

4 name for the court reporter. 

5 MR. HORCHNER: Hi. It's John Horchner. 

6 It's H-o-r-c-h-n-e-r. I'm a citizen of 

7 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and a resident of 

8 Allegheny County. 

9 I work as a writer, and I've done some 

10 work in the energy efficiency area, and I came to 

11 Pittsburgh by way of Vermont. And I think it's a 

12 unique area that can offer some insights as you 

13 move forward, both positive and negative. 

14 On the positive side, there is a group in 

15 Pittsburgh that is studying the energy efficiency 

16 and how it relates to indoor air quality, and 

17 they have found that there is a link. And that's 

18 a great benefit of energy efficiency. 

19 This week, when there are readings 

20 outside in Pittsburgh, according to Air Now, of 

21 160 microns of 2.5 particulate matter, the inside 

22 reading in the Homewood Library, Carnegie 
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1 Library, which is a kind of Homewood low-income 

2 area, was only 9. So they had renovated this 

3 building which was built between -- around the 

4 1900s. They had renovated it in 2004. So the 

5 point is this is a benefit of energy efficiency 

6 of these kinds of retrofits. 

7 The South Side Library, I got similar 

8 readings. That was redone in 2011. 

9 Now, why is this important? Ninety 

10 percent of our time is spent indoors. 

11 Nationally, asthma is the number one cause of 

12 school absenteeism. In Pittsburgh, school nurses 

13 estimate that 50 percent of the public school 

14 children have asthma. This figure was so 

15 startling that the Heinz Endowments is 

16 commissioning a study to verify that number, but 

17 that is from the school nurses themselves. 

18 So for the good news or the mixed news, I 

19 should say, Pennsylvania has a program called Act 

20 129, and it's an energy efficiency program. I 

21 think it gives a good example of the 

22 possibilities of what can happen when we work 
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1 with utilities. 

2 In most of the cases, I have to say from 

3 what I've seen, it provides a note of caution to 

4 beware of mixing energy efficiency with the 

5 utilities. Every bone in their body runs against 

6 energy efficiency. It just doesn't fit in any 

7 way, shape, or form. 

8 Eight years ago, they talked a great 

9 game. There was a lot of talk about job 

10 creation. There was a lot of talk about cutting 

11 energy, and what happened is the lobbyist got in, 

12 and the act turned into something that kind of 

13 lost its teeth and really became a gift to the 

14 utilities, if you can believe this. They were 

15 allowed to recapture 2 percent of their revenues, 

16 and they were only required over a 3-year period 

17 to reduce energy by less than 1 percent. So, 

18 when they trumpet the results from 2009 to 2013 

19 and say look at all the great things we've done, 

20 their reductions in energy, in my view, occurred 

21 because of the recession. 

22 Eight year ago when I moved here, there 
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1 was one utility offering one residential energy 

2 efficiency program in my ZIP code in Pittsburgh. 

3 Eight year later, after this act has been in 

4 existence, there is one utility offering one 

5 residential program in my ZIP code for energy 

6 efficiency. So forget Joe Biden's middle-class 

7 task force that's going to put America back to 

8 work. Forget about the possibility of a 40 

9 percent savings in home energy use, and I guess 

10 what's sad is forget about clean air in 

11 low-income areas. The energy efficiency does not 

12 seem to serve the interest of the utilities. So 

13 I don't know what you're going to do with that 

14 problem. 

15 Any other industry where there is health 

16 effects, the business would be closed down. So I 

17 don't know what you're going to do. Can't close 

18 the utilities down. How does that problem get 

19 solved? But, anyway, good luck with that. 

20 Thank you. 

21 MR. CAMPBELL: Thank you for your 

22 testimony, and thank you for your time today. 
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1 Thanks. 

2 The hearing is now in temporary recess 

3 until we have another speaker. 

4 [Recess taken from 2 to 2:13 p.m.] 

5 MR. CAMPBELL: I call this public hearing 

6 back into session. I will call the next two 

7 speakers. 

8 Please, Ms. Kacy McGill and Ms. Shannon 

9 Connors. Ms. Rumrill. 

10 So, before you start, please state your 

11 name, and spell your name for the court reporter, 

12 please. 

13 MS. McGILL: Okay. My name is Kacy 

14 McGill. It's K-a-c-y, M-c-G-i-l-l. 

15 Can I start? 

16 MR. CAMPBELL: Yeah, please. 

17 MS. McGILL: Okay. Wonderful. 

18 Hello, everyone. My name is Kacy McGill, 

19 and I am an undergrad student at the University 

20 of Pittsburgh studying biological sciences and 

21 chemistry. I would like to take the opportunity 

22 to thank you for giving students like myself a 
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1 chance to comment on the EPA's Clean Power Plan. 

2 I moved to Pittsburgh almost 3 years ago 

3 to study biology at the University of Pittsburgh 

4 from a small town in Maryland. As a child, I've 

5 always dealt with asthma, but my move to 

6 Pittsburgh exacerbated these symptoms. During 

7 the winter and spring, my lungs actually hurt, 

8 physically hurt. In the short time that I've 

9 lived in Pittsburgh, I've had severe bronchitis 

10 four times. I've only had bronchitis five times 

11 in my entire life. 

12 I have been hospitalized twice for asthma 

13 symptoms, and I have actually been hospitalized 

14 once this semester, 3 weeks ago. The poor air 

15 quality in Pittsburgh affects my lifestyle. It 

16 limits the amount of activities I can perform, 

17 and it requires me to take time off from school. 

18 I've probably missed 10 school days this 

19 semester. 

20 My story just provides a glimpse of the 

21 detrimental effects caused by fossil fuel 

22 industries. In some of the areas of the United 
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1 States, people can't take showers with lights on 

2 because of the methane levels in their water 

3 supply. Some people don't have access to clean 

4 water, and that's like a human rights. 

5 Because of contaminants due to unsafe 

6 fracking in this country, many people in the 

7 world, especially individuals from nonwhite and 

8 poor communities are affected because of the 

9 pollution we create as a society dependent on 

10 dirty industries. 

11 The nation's dependence on fossil fuel 

12 industries is not sustainable. The United States 

13 continued to lead as one of the biggest 

14 contributors of the carbon emissions in the 

15 world. We must address climate disruption 

16 through immense change in our lifestyle. We must 

17 resist pressure from the fossil fuel industry in 

18 solidarity in an economy that emphasizes the 

19 importance of renewable energy community and 

20 local businesses. 

21 The Clean Power Plan is a monumental step 

22 forward, but we must ensure that all stakeholders 
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1 accept full responsibility of the carbon 

2 environmental pollution. We cannot continue to 

3 jeopardize the health and well-being of our 

4 future generations by neglecting the environment. 

5 However, we must realize in order for true 

6 results to occur, there must be a cultural shift 

7 in the way we ask citizens to perceive 

8 environmental issues. Only with the support of a 

9 society can legislation and governmental 

10 negotiations create lasting change. 

11 At the University of Pittsburgh, we are 

12 doing our part by creating divestment campaigns, 

13 rallies and events. We strive every semester, 

14 every semester, to bring more awareness to 

15 students regarding the effects of climate change, 

16 and why students at the university should fight 

17 against carbon polluters. 

18 Even as a part-time student -- I mean 

19 full-time student with a part-time job, we 

20 realize the severity of climate change 

21 consequences and recognize the need to act now. 

22 It is the government's duty to the people to 
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1 comment against the destruction that companies 

2 accelerating climate change cause and their 

3 effects on the environment. 

4 Thank you. 

5 MR. CAMPBELL: Thank you, Ms. McGill. 

6 Thank you for your testimony. 

7 MS. RUMRILL: Okay. It's my turn? 

8 MR. CAMPBELL: Yes. Please state your 

9 name, and then spell it for the court reporter, 

10 please. 

11 MS. RUMRILL: My name is Carolyn Rumrill, 

12 C-a-r-o-l-y-n, R-u-m-r-i-l-l. It's kind of a 

13 hard one. 

14 So good afternoon. Like I said, my name 

15 is Carolyn Rumrill. I am a junior environmental 

16 science student at the University of Pittsburgh, 

17 and I am originally from Rochester, New York. 

18 I am here today to share why it is 

19 necessary for the EPA to create a strong federal 

20 implementation plan for clean power. 

21 We know climate change is real, is real 

22 and is happening right now. We know that one of 
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1 the main contributors to climate change is carbon 

2 dioxide. We know that the fossil fuel industry 

3 is one of the leading producers of carbon dioxide 

4 and other air pollutants. We also know that the 

5 United States has historically been the number 

6 one producer of greenhouse gases and is still one 

7 of the top producers today. 

8 So, last year, I had the privilege to 

9 study abroad in Beijing for 6 weeks, and I was 

10 absolutely horrified by the quality of air there. 

11 And I am just so proud of how far Pittsburgh has 

12 come because I know some people have compared 

13 what Beijing is today to what Pittsburgh used to 

14 be, just with the poor air quality. But I would 

15 hate if we were unable to continue making 

16 progress in this city. 

17 So the EPA needs to address this issue 

18 swiftly, and I hope the final set of regulations 

19 the EPA creates will be enough to create a 

20 drastic change in the way we acquire and produce 

21 energy in this country. 

22 Renewable energy is the energy not of the 
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1 future but of now. We have the tools necessary 

2 to stop poisoning our air, land, and water. 

3 Livelihoods are already in jeopardy from the mess 

4 the coal and fossil fuel industry has created. 

5 So many lives are affected by the thousands and 

6 thousands of tons of carbon and other pollutants 

7 we release every year. 

8 This plan cannot only stimulate economic 

9 growth and create jobs, but improve the health of 

10 people and children across the country. We the 

11 youth are tired of hearing about the doom of our 

12 future. We are ready to address this issue and 

13 make the necessary changes to save this Earth, 

14 our only home. 

15 We implore the generations ahead of us to 

16 help us in this endeavor for the generations who 

17 are not yet alive but will be impacted the most 

18 by what has been done, and we need to do that 

19 now. 

20 Thank you for listening and letting me 

21 share my concerns. 

22 MR. CAMPBELL: Thank you for your 
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1 testimony. Thank you for your time. You guys 

2 did great. Thank you. 

3 MS. RUMRILL: Thank you. 

4 MR. CAMPBELL: We will now call Shannon 

5 Connors and Alexandra Stash, please. 

6 MS. STASH: Hi. I'm Alexandra Stash, 

7 A-l-e-x-a-n-d-r-a, S-t-a-s-h. 

8 Like I said, my name is Alexandra Stash, 

9 and I am from New Gloucester, Maine. I am a 

10 student at the University of Pittsburgh and 

11 majoring in environmental science. Upon moving 

12 to Pittsburgh, I instantly noticed a change in 

13 the air quality here. The air here is very 

14 dense, sometimes making it hard to breathe, and 

15 many people living here develop some form of 

16 asthma throughout their lives. 

17 While the people of Pittsburgh suffer 

18 from poor air quality here, there are people all 

19 over the world who suffer a great deal more at 

20 the hands of the fossil fuel industry and from 

21 the emissions that we create here. 

22 The people of Unist'to'en Camp in Canada, 
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1 for example, are currently defending their native 

2 land from Chevron and other fossil fuel companies 

3 trying to build tar sands and fracked gas 

4 pipelines across their land. They depend on 

5 natural resources to survive, and these companies 

6 are jeopardizing their livelihoods. 

7 Other areas of the world, mainly in poor 

8 and non-white communities, are already depleted 

9 of their natural resources because of the 

10 pollution that we create here. The U.S. is among 

11 the countries who contribute the most to 

12 pollution through carbon emissions, and because 

13 of our pollutions, people's basic human rights, 

14 such as clean air, clean water, and fertile land 

15 are being taken away. 

16 The Clean Power Plan is a good starting 

17 point in fixing the solution -- or fixing this 

18 problem, but we have to be focused on the people 

19 and not numbers. The people experiencing the 

20 impacts I have discussed here will not have 

21 liberation until we are 100 percent carbon-free. 

22 They will continue to suffer each day that we do 
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1 not act, and the federal implementation plan 

2 would be a great way to enforce stronger rules 

3 with larger emission cuts on states that do not 

4 already have their own plan. 

5 I believe in you to take these steps even 

6 when political backlash is a great possibility. 

7 The youth environmental movement is mobilizing 

8 all around the country by occupying space, 

9 speaking at rallies, and launching divestment 

10 campaigns. We are acting, and we realize the 

11 seriousness of the problem at hand. Now it's 

12 your turn to do something about it. 

13 MR. CAMPBELL: Thank you for your 

14 testimony, Ms. Connors. 

15 MS. CONNORS: S-h-a-n-n-o-n, 

16 C-o-n-n-o-r-s. 

17 All right. I'm Shannon Connors. I am an 

18 environmental studies major at the University of 

19 Pittsburgh. I'm a sophomore, and I'm here today 

20 to voice my support for President Obama's Clean 

21 Power Plan. 

22 Recently, I've been hearing a lot of 
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1 people talk about how great it is that last year, 

2 Forble.com and The Economist named Pittsburgh one 

3 of the most livable cities in the U.S., and I've 

4 only been here for 2 years almost, but I can 

5 definitely say that Pittsburgh is an awesome 

6 city. We've got like the sports stadiums, the 

7 parks, and a lot of cool stuff going on, but 

8 being the most livable city isn't the only thing 

9 Pittsburgh ranks high in. Our air is in the 

10 dirtiest 13 percent of U.S. cities, right behind 

11 L.A., which is at 7.1 percent. 

12 In 2014, 270 out of 365 days were rated 

13 yellow or worse in terms of air quality by you 

14 guys, the EPA, and we rank ninth in the nation 

15 for annual PM2.5, and the toxicity of the air in 

16 Allegheny County is in the worst 2 percent, and 

17 58 percent of that pollution is coming from the 

18 nearby industries. 

19 And these are numbers that people don't 

20 want to talk about but obviously need to hear, 

21 and Pittsburgh is often called the comeback city, 

22 and people here are very proud of how far they've 
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1 come. And, yes, you no longer have to wipe soot 

2 off your car when you go to work in the morning, 

3 and there is no longer a constant gray haze, but 

4 that isn't enough. Pittsburgh has come a long 

5 way, but we definitely have a lot more work to 

6 do, and the demographic that's being most 

7 affected by this poor air quality or water 

8 quality is probably the group that's contributing 

9 the least to these issues. And, in most cases, 

10 that's children. 

11 And a study conducted by the University 

12 of Pittsburgh found a link between poor air 

13 quality an autism because they're like taking in 

14 more -- I forget the phrasing, but they're taking 

15 in, like, more toxins per pound because they're 

16 so tiny. 

17 And we have a chance to hold people 

18 accountable right now, and just down the river at 

19 Neville Island, Koch Operations, they've had 

20 chronic violations of air quality standards that 

21 occurred on 330 days in a 432-day period. So, 

22 obviously, the current regulations and 
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1 punishments aren't working, so I think if the 

2 fines in place were close to an amount that would 

3 be threatening, that they would maybe take those 

4 violations more seriously. 

5 That's all I got. Thank you. 

6 MR. CAMPBELL: Thank you, Ms. Connors. 

7 Thank you, Ms. Stash. Thank you for your time 

8 today, and thank you for your testimony. 

9 MS. CONNORS: Thank you. 

10 [Pause.] 

11 MR. CAMPBELL: So we'll call the next 

12 speaker, Mr. Good. Please state your name, and 

13 spell it for the court reporter, please. 

14 MR. GOOD: Ed Good, G-o-o-d. 

15 My name is Ed Good. I'm with the Utility 

16 Workers Union of America. I want to thank the 

17 EPA for this opportunity to provide comments on 

18 the federal plan requirements for greenhouse gas 

19 emissions, from electric utility generating 

20 units, which were constructed on or before 

21 January 8th of 2014. 

22 I am a proud member of the USUA for over 
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1 37 years. For 32 of those 37 years, I worked at 

2 the R.E. Burger Electric Generating Plant in Mead 

3 Township, Belmont County, Ohio, which is just 70 

4 miles from here. The Burger plant ceased normal 

5 operation in December of 2010. 

6 I have seen firsthand the impact of what 

7 state and/or federal policy and regulations can 

8 do to an industry, region, communities, workers, 

9 and families. So I'm here today, just want to 

10 allow us, to properly address all aspects of 

11 issues pertaining to a possible federal 

12 implementation plan. I hope my comments 

13 generates thought or consideration for the plan. 

14 As you well know, this is a very complex 

15 process. Comments, stakeholders, engagement, and 

16 other action during the proposed Clean Power Plan 

17 phase and now the fun rule phase is daunting. 

18 The diversity of our nation as well as our energy 

19 structure and delivery capability makes a 

20 one-size-fits-all plan virtually impossible. 

21 States, regions, and their status of a 

22 competitive market and/or one of those of 
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1 regulation, whether it be gas, electric 

2 generation and/or delivery systems also needs to 

3 be considered when developing a plan. However, 

4 there are some basic components of a plan that 

5 would address a national concern. 

6 It is imperative a FIP addresses and 

7 assures security, reliability, affordability, and 

8 climate resiliency of our nation's energy grid. 

9 Support for new technologies that will protect 

10 existing jobs and create new jobs while reducing 

11 emissions also needs to be a part of the plan. 

12 Carbon capture utilization and storage, 

13 coal to liquids, and gasification technology are 

14 a couple of examples of essential programs that 

15 will not only protect thousands of families 

16 supporting jobs associated with coal and/or 

17 co-fired generation, but it is also a component 

18 of a workable plan addressing climate change. 

19 With power demand surging around the 

20 globe and with countries like China and India 

21 continuing to build new coal-fired plants to fire 

22 their growing economies, effective carbon capture 
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1 sequestration will be essential if we are to be 

2 successful in reducing carbon emissions on a 

3 global level. 

4 Without carbon capture sequestration, 

5 global carbon emissions will continue to rise, 

6 regardless of any reductions in the U.S. Lessons 

7 learned from January 2014 cold weather events in 

8 the PJM interconnection cannot be ignored. On 

9 January 8th, PJM needed to bring on 50,000 

10 megawatts of generation or about 175 to 200 units 

11 in a short period of time to meet demand. 

12 These included many units that had not 

13 run in months. Many of the plans called on to 

14 address the demand failed to start, including 45 

15 percent of gas combustion units. The next day, 

16 during PJM's all-time winter peak, 22 percent of 

17 capacity were over 45,000 megawatts, three times 

18 the more than normal, was offline due to forced 

19 outages. Over 14,000 megawatts of coal-fired 

20 pending retirements performed at 52 percent 

21 capacity during the Polar Vortex. This and other 

22 anomalies are all but forgotten until the next 
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1 extent. 

2 Black Star Plant where unit capability -- 

3 with the ability to bring a unit on or a plant 

4 online, which is totally separate from the grid, 

5 should be another critical component of a plan. 

6 The fuel mix, unit performance, and other 

7 critical factors need to be considered within the 

8 plan. 

9 The EPA/FERC reliability safety valve 

10 concept is also worthy of discussion. Although 

11 regulators agree with this much needed provision, 

12 it is unclear on how or where this will be 

13 achieved. A mechanism by which a unit or plan is 

14 placed on turning gear for a period of time can 

15 assist or address this concern. This process 

16 should be separate from reliability, must run 

17 tight designation or agreement. The turning gear 

18 concept would merely prevent a unit or plant from 

19 irreparable harm or damage if decommissioned. If 

20 needed, a unit on turning gear could be restarted 

21 after being out of commission for a period of 

22 time if maintained properly. 
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1 The estimated loss of 50 gigawatts of 

2 coal-fired generation by 2030 would impact 

3 certain states, regional, and local economies 

4 differently. When considering a federal 

5 implementation plan, crafters need to be 

6 cognizant of the real impact to communities. 

7 Adopting polities that support the modernization 

8 of existing generation and transmission 

9 infrastructure, including the continued use of 

10 responsible coal-fired generation coupled with 

11 real support for workers and communities who may 

12 have become stranded in the process, is the best 

13 path forward. 

14 Once again, I'd like to thank you for the 

15 opportunity to provide comments, and I would be 

16 happy to address any questions, if you have any. 

17 Thank you. 

18 MR. CAMPBELL: Thank you, Mr. Good. 

19 Thank you for your testimony and for your time 

20 today. 

21 MR. GOOD: Thank you. 

22 MR. CAMPBELL: Thank you. 
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1 The hearing will now be in recess until 

2 we have another speaker. 

3 [Recess taken from 2:33 to 2:59 p.m.] 

4 MR. CAMPBELL: I call this public hearing 

5 back into session. The next speakers are ready 

6 to speak. I call Brittany Faulkner and Angela 

7 Wiley. Please take your time. Whenever you're 

8 ready. 

9 So, Ms. Faulkner, when you're ready, 

10 please state your name, and spell it for the 

11 court reporter, please. 

12 MS. FAULKNER: Okay. All right. My name 

13 is Brittany Faulkner, B-r-i-t-t-a-n-y, 

14 F-a-u-l-k-n-e-r. 

15 All right. While I am a student at the 

16 University of Pittsburgh and I'm originally from 

17 a small town nestled in the Allegheny Forest 

18 called Smethport, Pennsylvania, I moved to 

19 Pittsburgh on a warm August morning, and my first 

20 view of the skyline was hazy because of fine 

21 particulates that blocked my view. 

22 I see these particles as evidence of a 
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1 rapidly changing climate caused by our own 

2 willingness to change. We are at a crucial 

3 moment in history where change is necessary. 

4 Continuing to generate electricity the way we do 

5 will ultimately drive us to experience shortages 

6 of food and shelter. 

7 I'm a strong support of the Clean Power 

8 Plan because I see it as the first step on the 

9 road to addressing climate change. I want to see 

10 reform in the way the U.S. tackles climate change 

11 and how we plan to meet our energy needs in the 

12 future. I think the best way to do this is to 

13 implement a plan at the federal level. Each 

14 state must abide by it, and no one can back out 

15 of helping to achieve the goal of reducing our 

16 carbon output and ultimately helping to create a 

17 sustainable society within the United States. 

18 I also think we need to set an example 

19 for other countries and show that carbon emission 

20 standards are necessary, and I think implementing 

21 this plan is the first step in doing that. 

22 Having a federal implementation plan is 
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1 also vital for the health of current and future 

2 generations. My little brother was diagnosed 

3 with asthma when he was 9, and I couldn't 

4 understand why, because no one else in the 

5 history of my family had asthma. Then I learned 

6 that all of the pollution created in the Ohio 

7 River Valley blows over on to Pennsylvania. 

8 My roommate also has asthma, but oddly 

9 enough, it developed only after she emigrated 

10 from Canada over 10 years ago. The air we breathe 

11 is starting to affect us, and we need to take 

12 action now in order to spare our children and 

13 ourselves harm. 

14 Right now, we are facing tons of 

15 opposition from people who claim setting carbon 

16 emission standards and enforcing them at the 

17 federal level will rattle our economy. We can't 

18 let them win. We need to support this plan and 

19 what it stands for, a healthier generation with 

20 fewer asthma attacks and a future where people 

21 can look at the skyline of Pittsburgh and see a 

22 crystal-clear view of how far the nation has come 
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1 in air quality reform. 

2 Thank you. 

3 MR. CAMPBELL: Thank you for your 

4 testimony, Ms. Faulkner. 

5 Ms. Wiley? 

6 MS. WILEY: Thank you. My name is Angela 

7 Wiley, A-n-g-e-l-a, W-i-l-e-y. 

8 Hello. MY name is Angela Wiley. I am a 

9 West Virginia transplant to Pittsburgh, 

10 Pennsylvania. Thank you for the opportunity to 

11 offer comment today. 

12 I'm here to speak in support of the EPA's 

13 Clean Power Plan and to comment on the recently 

14 proposed federal implementation plan. I'm here 

15 today because I was invited by an organizer at 

16 the Allegheny Group of the Sierra Club named Eva. 

17 Six years ago, I started organizing with 

18 Eva as a late teenager, just entering college, 

19 around environmental issues, and in preparing 

20 this comment, I realized that for the first time, 

21 Eva and I have inched our way out of the category 

22 of youth, and it felt important to mark my first 
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1 public comment as what I feel is like a real 

2 adult. It is a very weird feeling. 

3 In Pittsburgh now, instead of being a 

4 college student or a youth climate activist, I am 

5 a public librarian, and I am the granddaughter -- 

6 I have always been a granddaughter of a lifelong 

7 steelworker. I am part of a network of dozens of 

8 neighborhoods who rely on their libraries for 

9 gathering together, for information seeking, and 

10 for rethinking the way the world works, in big 

11 and small ways. 

12 The narrative of Pittsburgh is by now 

13 well known. The city, which I admire and love 

14 with every bone in my body, has demonstrated that 

15 it is possible to being moving beyond our history 

16 and our memories. 

17 The production of steel in Pittsburgh, 

18 fueled by coal mined in Southern West Virginia, 

19 Eastern Kentucky, and other pockets of Appalachia 

20 has turned lungs and church brick black with soot 

21 and has threatened the health of our rivers. 

22 It also built a town with people strong 
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1 in steel, and today and in days to come, we can 

2 keep the good, and we can shed our attachment to 

3 dirty industry and to fossil fuel extraction. 

4 To build a model federal plan that is 

5 strong and that is justice based, the EPA must 

6 ensure that the carbon pollution standards and 

7 the model federal plan achieve the pollution 

8 reductions promised in the final power plan or 

9 that the standards in your model plan reach even 

10 higher to show what is truly possible. 

11 I would like to see that the model 

12 federal plan benefits frontline, low-income, and 

13 indigenous communities that have faced fossil 

14 fuels pollution in extractive industry that have 

15 created the falsehood of cheap energy. 

16 I would like to see a model federal plan 

17 that maximizes utilities' incentives that invest 

18 in energy efficiency and would like to see 

19 incentives withheld for utilities who are not 

20 seeking innovative and justice-based bridges away 

21 from fossil fuels. 

22 EPA, I urge you to take on the innovative 
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1 spirit of Pittsburgh and to embody the strength, 

2 compassion, and curiosity of the community 

3 members and the librarians who I work with every 

4 day in Pittsburgh public libraries. I know you 

5 have the research to support a strong model 

6 federal plan, and now I lend my voice to leverage 

7 some political will. 

8 So please get to work in moving the Clean 

9 Power Plan ever forward. The young generations 

10 that I now serve in the library do not just need 

11 clean air to breathe, they need a shift away from 

12 boom-and-bust industries, and they need to see 

13 leadership from you and from the rest of us to 

14 begin that shift. 

15 So thanks in advance for working to move 

16 a strong power plan forward. 

17 MR. CAMPBELL: Thank you, Ms. Wiley. 

18 MS. WILEY: Thank you. 

19 I have paper copies if you'd like them. 

20 MR. CAMPBELL: Yes. Please give one to 

21 the court reporter and one to the registration 

22 desk. 
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1 MS. WILEY: Okay. 

2 MR. CAMPBELL: Thank you both for your 

3 time and your testimony. You did great. Thanks. 

4 The hearing will now be in recess until 

5 another speaker arrives. 

6 [Recess taken from 3:06 to 3:18 p.m.] 

7 MR. CAMPBELL: The public hearing is 

8 called back into order. 

9 Mr. Romanus, please state your name and 

10 spell it for the court reporter, please. 

11 MR. ROMANUS: Sure. Jordan Romanus, 

12 J-o-r-d-a-n, last name Romanus, R-o-m-a-n-u-s. 

13 So, actually, I grew up an hour south of 

14 here in the coal-mining town of Waynesburg, 

15 Pennsylvania. We still have a few functioning 

16 mines, but they're slowly closing them down. 

17 Actually, I think they just announced they closed 

18 the Emerald Mine or Cumberland Mine, one of the 

19 two. I still have friends who are in the coal 

20 mining industry, and a lot of my family still 

21 works in the coal mining industry. 

22 My pappy recently passed away. He spent 
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1 40 years there. A lot of relatives worked there. 

2 My grandma still depends on the pension from the 

3 mine workers. 

4 But despite all of that, I think this 

5 plan is something we have to do. I feel like the 

6 people in those communities need to be taken care 

7 of, but as a society, we need to -- we have to be 

8 honest with ourselves and say coal is bad for our 

9 future, and we need to do whatever we got to do, 

10 whether it's the Clean Power Plan, some other 

11 plan, complete support of it, and whatever we 

12 have to do to make sure that the Republicans 

13 don't jam this up and ruin it. I'm in complete 

14 support of it, and I guess that's pretty much it. 

15 Actually, one last comment. Our 

16 congressman is Tim Murphy. I know he says a lot 

17 of stuff about supporting the coal miners, but 

18 just for the record, I think he could care less 

19 about the working people of Appalachia. 

20 Thank you. 

21 MR. CAMPBELL: Thank you, Mr. Romanus. 

22 Thank you for your testimony and for your time. 
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1 I will call the next speaker, Mr. 

2 Butcher, please. 

3 Mr. Butcher, please state your name, and 

4 spell it for the court reporter, please. 

5 MR. BUTCHER: Good afternoon. My name is 

6 Andrew Butcher, B-u-t-c-h-e-r. Thank you for 

7 hosting these hearings. Thank you for having me 

8 today. I represent an organization by the name 

9 of GTECH Strategies. I am the founder and CEO. 

10 GTECH stands for Growth Through Energy and 

11 Community Health. We are an environmental and 

12 community development non-profit based in 

13 Pittsburgh's East End. We work in communities 

14 throughout Allegheny County, working with 

15 community partnerships at the intersection of 

16 community development and the green economy. 

17 Largely, we're interested in how the 

18 process of targeting environmental liabilities 

19 can serve as a process for community development, 

20 community revitalization, of which our region 

21 represents a wide away of environmental 

22 liabilities, which no doubt prior testimonies 
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1 have alluded to, to which extent we represent a 

2 portion of the non-profit sector that recognizes 

3 that through collective action, we have the 

4 opportunity for innovative economic development, 

5 to which extent we are a proud co-founder and 

6 co-convener of the Reenergized Pittsburgh 

7 Coalition, representing a spectrum of energy 

8 efficiency providers throughout Allegheny County, 

9 who have been working for the last 5 years to 

10 increase awareness around energy efficiency and 

11 the potential -- and a range of different 

12 communities to invest in home energy performance 

13 issues. 

14 So three primary points for testimony 

15 today. The final version of the Clean Power Plan 

16 released in August does not list demand-side 

17 energy efficiency as a building block among the 

18 methods of emissions reduction; however, we 

19 encourage the state to promote and incorporate 

20 energy efficiency as a key component of the 

21 Pennsylvania state implementation plan. 

22 We appreciate the EPA's role in 
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1 facilitating a broader statewide process. We 

2 encourage the state of Pennsylvania to pursue its 

3 own state implementation plan with clear 

4 coordination and partnership with the EPA. 

5 Energy efficiency represents the 

6 cleanest, cheapest, and fastest method of 

7 emissions reduction. The benefits of demand-side 

8 energy efficiency include reduced energy cost for 

9 consumers, reduced demand on grid, job creation, 

10 workforce development, improved health and 

11 citizens in our environment, and a significant 

12 step towards reaching the overall emissions 

13 reduction goals under the Clean Power Plan. 

14 So how can the Commonwealth best use 

15 energy efficiency in meetings its compliance 

16 obligations? We do encourage the DEP to make 

17 energy efficiency the first method of emissions 

18 reductions, as described above. Energy 

19 efficiency provides a myriad of environmental 

20 economic benefits, and we recommend that the DEP 

21 leverage existing energy efficiency programs, 

22 such as Act 129, by aligning the state 
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1 implementation goals with the structure of these 

2 programs. 

3 Further, if you bear with me -- and 

4 perhaps most importantly for my organization's 

5 mission, which targets low- to moderate-income 

6 communities, we are particularly keen to see 

7 regional support for the Pennsylvania plan to 

8 include provisions for participating in the Clean 

9 Energy Incentive Program, which would permit 

10 double credit for emissions reductions in 

11 low-income communities. This could have 

12 significant impact in our region in not only 

13 advancing energy efficiency, but also renewable 

14 energy mitigating associated home performance 

15 issues that impair home health conditions in 

16 low-income residents' homes. 

17 Again, to underscore, Clean Energy 

18 Incentive Program represents I think a unique and 

19 bold opportunity for the Commonwealth to 

20 incentivize a growing opportunity for investments 

21 in the green economy, which would 

22 disproportionately affect and benefit those 
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1 communities disproportionately affected by 

2 environmental injustice. 

3 Our organization, as I mentioned, is 

4 based in the East End of Pittsburgh. We 

5 represent low to moderate incomes throughout 

6 Allegheny County. More information can be found 

7 at ww.GTECHStrategies.org. 

8 Thank you very much, and I look forward 

9 to next steps with this process. 

10 MR. CAMPBELL: Thank you, Mr. Butcher. 

11 Thank you for your testimony and for your time 

12 today. 

13 The hearing will now be in temporary 

14 recess until another speaker arrives. 

15 [Recess taken from 3:24 to 3:43 p.m.] 

16 MR. CAMPBELL: The public hearing is 

17 called into session. 

18 The next speaker, Ms. Schatz. Please 

19 state your name, and spell it for the court 

20 reporter. 

21 MS. SCHATZ: Jessica Schatz. 

22 J-e-s-s-i-c-a. Schatz is S-c-h-a-t-z. All 
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1 ready? 

2 MR. CAMPBELL: Yes, please. Whenever 

3 you're ready. 

4 MS. SCHATZ: Great. Good afternoon. My 

5 name is Jessica Schatz. I am a student at the 

6 University of Pittsburgh as well as a board 

7 member of Free the Planet, an environmental group 

8 on University of Pittsburgh's campus. 

9 I am here today to represent the student 

10 body at my university as well as the youth of 

11 today as a whole. 

12 I grew up in a small town in Northwest 

13 Washington State. Coming to Pittsburgh was my 

14 first experience living in a large city. My 

15 college experience has been filled with traveling 

16 to new places, whether cities in the U.S., 

17 Boston, Chicago, D.C., as well as time spent 

18 abroad in West Africa and Europe. 

19 During this time, I have been exposed to 

20 much more diversity than I'd ever seen in my 

21 hometown. I've encountered different world views 

22 and interests and lifestyles. I've become aware 
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1 of societal challenges that some people combat 

2 every day that I didn't even know existed, yet at 

3 the base of all of this diversity, we are united 

4 by some basic needs and wants. 

5 We all want to provide a good life for 

6 our families to live safe and stable lives, to be 

7 in good health, but none of these things are 

8 possible. When 25.5 million people in our 

9 country live with asthma, these cases 

10 concentrated where air pollution is most severe. 

11 None of these things are possible when 

12 CO2 levels in water are acidifying the water, 

13 destroying both marine life and threatening the 

14 livelihoods of those who depend on it. 

15 None of these things are possible when 

16 sea levels are rising, putting the 643 million 

17 people around the globe that live in 

18 low-elevation coastal areas at risk of losing 

19 their homes. None of these things -- safe, 

20 healthy, stable lives -- are possible if we don't 

21 care for the environment in which we live. 

22 I want to thank the EPA for the work it's 
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1 done in finalizing the Clean Power Plan. Taking 

2 action to reduce carbon emissions from power 

3 plants is a very crucial step in combatting the 

4 negative effects of climate change. 

5 I want to express my support for the plan 

6 as well as push the EPA to strengthen its 

7 restrictions even further. If we are to face the 

8 global threats of climate change, it is 

9 imperative that the United States sends a strong 

10 message to the global community that it is 

11 committed and serious, not through merely verbal 

12 support, but by the actions it takes to make 

13 positive change. 

14 Thank you. 

15 MR. CAMPBELL: Thank you, Ms. Schatz. 

16 Thank you for your time and for your testimony. 

17 The public hearing will now be in 

18 temporary recess. 

19 [Recess taken from 3:48 to 5 p.m.] 

20 MR. CAMPBELL: I will now call the public 

21 hearing into session. We have no further 

22 speakers. I will close the public hearing. 
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1 [Whereupon, at 5:01 p.m., the hearing was 

2 closed.] 

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