Seth r. 

~ 1 15 Curling Creek Lan 

Rixeyville, VA 

; o , . . n r , o E ' A ~ ' o p o • .r Section d) Ruir 

;, e Reduce Power Plant Carbon 

Good morning. IViy name is Seth Heald. I've lived in Virginia for 32 

years. I'm a recently retired lawyer and a current graduate student in the 

masters degree program on energy policy and climate change at Johns 

Hopkins University. 

I thank the EPA for issuing the proposed carbon standards, and for 

holding this hearing today to allow the public to comment on them. Efforts 

to reduce power-plant carbon emissions are long overdue. President Lyndon 

Johnson was briefed on global warming in the 1960s. As the science 

historian Spencer Weart described in his excellent, highly readable 2003 

book The Discovery of Global Warming, we've known since the 19 thcentury 

about the ability of atmospheric carbon-dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel 

burning to raise Earth's temperature. In the 1980s and 1990s the science 

became even clearer, as did the evidence that atmospheric carbon dioxide 

has increased enormously and our planet is, as a result, indeed warming. 

We've known for some time what we need to do. But our nation and much 

of the rest of the world have dithered. 

So it's heartening that the EPA has now taken a serious step towards 

reducing carbon emissions from a leading source—electric power plants. In 

truth, the proposed rule is insufficient. We need stronger emission 

reductions, and we need them more quickly. But I won't dwell on that here. 

The proposed standards, and the great flexibility they give to each state to 

implement them, are an important first step in our effort to decarbonize the 

electric grid. 

We know we can do this. In fact many states, not waiting for the EPA, 

have already taken significant steps to reduce power-plant carbon emissions, 

and their economies have not suffered; indeed they have thrived. 

Unfortunately my state, Virginia, is well behind the leaders in acting on 

climate, but these carbon rules will prod Virginia to catch up with its more 

forward-thinking neighbors. 
Despite the urgency of our climate predicament, you have heard and 

will hear from people and corporations, some quite powerful and influential, 

who claim that we can't do this, or we can't afford to, or it will ruin our 

economy. Many of these naysayers are linked to and profit greatly from the 

burning of fossil fuels. As shown by Professor Naomi Oreskes in another 

excellent book, Merchants of Doubt, some fossil-fuel interests have 

promoted a deliberate campaign of disinformation about climate science, 

designed to create a false sense of doubt about that science, just as was done 

decades earlier in connection with tobacco and its link to cancer. 

The short answers to the climate-action naysayers are (1) we can't 

afford not to act now, (2) delaying climate action will cost our economy 

much more, and (3) the EPA is required to act on carbon emissions because 

the Supreme Court told the EPA it must—seven years ago in EPA v. 

Massachusetts. In fact the current efforts of some, including some members 

of Congress, to demonize the EPA's carbon-reduction efforts and to resist 

impleanentation of EPA v. Massachusetts remind me of an unfortunate 

chapter in Virginia's history. 

In the 1950s a shameful effort, termed "massive resistance," was 

established at the instigation of a U.S. senator from Virginia. Many other 

public officials signed on, and state laws were even passed in the effort. The 

purpose of course was to block implementation of the Supreme Court's 

Brown v. Board of Education decision barring segregation in public schools. 

The massive resistance of the 1950s was morally and legally wrong, 

the actions of a group of misguided people who were on the wrong side of 

history. Well the same is true of those today who say we shouldn't act now 

to reduce carbon emissions, and that the EPA should not do what the 

Supreme Court told the EPA it must do. 

Virginians and all Americans face severe threats to life, limb, public 

health, and property from global warrning. Thank you EPA for taking this 

important step in reducing carbon emissions.