Edwardj Chute, PhD 904 Valleyview Road Mount Lebanon Pittsburgh, PA 15243-1022 724.516.7751 ejchute@hotmail.com EPA Hearing: Pittsburgh, PA Docket No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2013-0602 Docket No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2013-0630 Iam Ed Chute. Ilive with my wife of48 years at 904 Valleyview Rd in the municipality ofMount Lebanon near Pittsburgh, PA. Ivividly remember attending elementary and high school in Pittsburgh when streetlights were required at mid day because ofthe dense darkness at noon and whenthe night skies were constantlyilluminated nearly as well as our daylight hours by the industrial glow. I remember being upbraided by my elementary school teacher when I drew a yellow line across the page when told to draw a picture ofthe Sun, ratherthanthe way it appeared in our readers. I didn't know the Sun was round because it didn't look that wayto me through the smoggy air, and Ihadyet to live or travel beyond the region.
Obviously, james Parton's nineteenth century description and moniker for Pittsburgh as "hell with the lid off' was notjustwell deserved during my youth but also caused by the particulate pollution in the air from the workingsteel mills and industrial factories fueled predominately by coke and coal. Since thattime, Pittsburgh has undergone two Renaissances, clearing the air so that we can now see thatthe sky is blue not black during the day and the Sun is a round orb. The region has refocused, revitalized, and restructured its industrial, economic, and cultural underpinnings. We may no longer top the list ofmost polluted places in the US andon the Planet; nonetheless, Pittsburgh still is belowthe "pass" threshold for every
measure for air and water quality no matterwhat our politicians tryto tell us.
Pittsburgh is still trying to move itselfpoliticallyawayfrom its early and late twentieth century political behaviors into an entirelynewtwenty-first century economically, perhaps even politically.! sense thatthe EPA's proposal suffers from
an analogous and similar "too much political and economic baggage approach" to become effective in dealingwith Climate Change. I note thatthe EPA's plan may have a fatal flaw for the Planet's environment because it appears to delay any sort of implementation until no soonerthan 2025, more than a decade from now atthe earliestbecause EPA's plan depends so heavily on a setofsuccessful negotiations and state level agreements-prior even to initiating any serious reductions in pollutants. The EPA's plan restricts itselfprimarily to carbon emissions from electricity generating plants, essentiallyignoring suchthings as methane and carbon dioxide gas emissions, which pose even more serious long-term threats to our breathable and protective atmosphere. Any such Top to Bottom, then back up to the Top approach, serves mainly to impede initiation and almost is destined to fail within our current political framework, populated with so many climate change deniers and fiduciary elites who value delay in orderto make the proverbial hay today more than they do anything else, including their own children's and grandchildren's and species' future. Nearly everything aboutthe EPA's proposal suffers from thatwrong-headedness and mindset.The EPA's proposal concentrates fairly exclusively on pollution resulting from domestic consumption ofcarbon fuels while ignoringthe reality thatthe US is not the only carbon pollutingnation in the world. In fact, the EPA's proposal ignores the fundamental source ofthe problem: extraction. Ifwe leave the coal, oil, and gas in the ground, we will have made a giant leap forward in reducingthe greenhouse effect. Failing to deal with the domestic extraction ofcoal, oil, and natural gas will only encourage the investors who own or are leasing Earth's resources to sell them abroad, hence increasingand encouraging the Planet's problemwith pollution and extinction ofits resources. Where is the EPA's recognition and position aboutthe value-even necessity-ofrenewable energyresources within the context of Climate Change?

Rather than focusing on renewable sources ofenergy, the EPA proposal encourages investment in the extraction and exportation ofour precious natural resources. Certainly, there are even a more substantial number ofpoliticians and economic financiers who do and will favor investmentin such extraction and export of
resources than there are even climate change deniers. Such folks potentiallyare an
even more significant and powerful opposition to any and all current and future attempts to save our one and only Planet Home from ourselves.

In spite ofthe flaws Ihave delineated, Istill supportthe EPA's proposal becauseto do nothingis totally and completelyunacceptable to me, my children, my grandchildren, and the future survival ofour species. Our Planet has and will

### continue to change. It will probablyremain for several more billions ofyears without us. The issue is will any living species survive our fecklessness thatwe alone can ameliorate and avoid-ifwe act immediately and purposefully.
4:57 

### August 1, 

### 2014