James P Luidl 

950 South St Apt 1 

Castle Rock, CO 80104 

ipluidl@gmail.com 

720-206-5619 

Re: EPA Clean Power Plan Testimony 

July 30, 2014 

EPA Region 8 Headquarters 

Good afternoon, my name is Jim Luidl, I am the vice-chairman of the Denver Metro Network of the 

Sierra Club. We represent thousands of Sierra Club members and supporters in the Denver 

metropolitan area. Our mission is to engage and organize our membership in environmental issues that 

impact them, to explore, enjoy and protect the vi,"\e-\-- 

Certainly the affects of carbon driven climate change are something that we in Colorado are 

experiencing first hand. An ongoing drought in its third decade. Hotter summers, flooding, 

destructive hail and tornadoes, all occurring with disturbing regularity. Increased smog in our urban 

areas. And the impacts all of these things have on our cities, farms and wild areas. 

I moved to Colorado in 2005. In that short time, I've seen startling changes to the general weather 

patterns on the Front Range. As a journalist, I speak with native Coloradans, who frequently point to 

how spring and summer are coming earlier. How the monsoon pattern, that you could set your watch 

by, no longer exists and in some years completely disappeared, or in the case of this year, comes back 

with a vengeance. 

This is particularly hard on our farmers and ranchers, especially those who practice dry land 

agriculture, and depend on those patterns for their lively hood. I've seen farmer's crops dry up in super 

heated summers. And those who survived it, only to see their crops destroyed by hail, and flooding. 

I've seen cattle ranchers forced out of business. Watched their fields turn to brown, making them sell 

their cattle early, underfed, underweight and undervalued. 

For all of us, sitting in this room and who sit down to a meal in their homes each day, we feel the 

impacts of these weather events, which for those making their living off the land, is no less than 

catastrophic. Beef, pork and poultry prices are at all-time highs. The price of staples, such as milk and 

bread, also on rise. 

And what of the price to our health. Breathing dirty air, drinking dirty water, polluted by coal ash 

spills, eating food, poisoned by the mercury and chemicals released by fossil fuels. 

The coal industry would argue, "but we'll have higher energy prices." But at what price for the rest. 

Higher food prices, higher healthcare costs, not only for everyone in America, but for the same coal 

miners that the industry professes to protect. Coal miners who make no where near as much as they did 

a generation a go. Coal miners who are fewer in numbers than they were a generation ago. Not 

because we built a solar farm in Colorado Springs, but because of mechanization of their trade. The. 

coal industry has no more loyalty to their employees than the days work they can pull out of them. But 
then again, only until they can be replaced by a machine. 

I am also a member of the Colorado Trail Foundation. We maintain the trail from Denver to Durango. 

Hundred of dedicated people work with the United States Forest Service, to give their of their time 

freely to do the back breaking work of keeping the trail free of fallen trees, and fixing erosion 

problems. 

Those of us, like myself, who are designated trail adopters, see the impacts of climate change as few 

others do. Beetle kill, brought about by Colorado's decades long drought have wrecked havoc in 

Rocky Mountain Forests. A great amount of my maintenance team's time is spent just clearing the trees 

that fall across the trail each year from that infestation. You can walk for miles among trees that have 

died from insect predation, or simply withered away from the lack of water. Everyone of these trees 

are a danger to backpackers and day hikers, who simply want to enjoy our disappearing wild areas. 

The past several years have also seen those same trees fuel the wildfires that have ravaged across 

Colorado, and many other western states. Sections of the trail had to be closed last year, because it was 

too dangerous to pass through those areas. 

On the other side of the coin are the effects heavy storms and flooding. We've seen damage to the trail, 

which has our work crews working constantly to catch up. The damage of early runoff and flooding 

this year will keep us working for years to come. While some may call trail safety for backpackers a 

"first world problem", we simply call it "Trail Safety". 

These same problems are not isolated to our trail. Every national park, every designated wilderness 

area, state park, city park and community open space face the same problems. It costs us real tax 

dollars to maintain and repair the vast wilderness spaces that were given to us by the likes of Theodore 

Roosevelt, David Brower and Stephen Mather. They are a symbol of the heights of greatness and the 

unique lands of which America possess. 

Can we continue to do nothing? I say the price is to high. 

There are millions of Americans who feel the impacts of carbon at their everyday lives. 

1 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/5c4500fc-a518-11e3-8988-00144feab7de.html#axzz38oHtkLDy