EPA holds public hearing in W.Va. about rolling back Obama-era power plant carbon emissions - Entrepreneur Generations

The Environmental Protection Agency is holding the second of a two-day hearing today in the heart of coal country over its proposal to dismantle Obama-era rules to cut power plant carbon emissions. On the first day of the hearing--the only one the EPA has scheduled on the Clean Power Plan repeal--more than 200 people came to the state capitol building in Charleston, W.Va. to comment and listen. More than 270 people signed up to speak--so many that the EPA broke the hearing up into three rooms for two days, Jason Schwartz reports for The New York Times.

People on both sides of the issue asked for things they likely can't have, Ken Ward Jr. reports for the Charleston Gazette-Mail: "Coal industry officials and regional political leaders spoke hopefully of a major resurgence in mining, a development most experts agree won’t happen, even with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency carbon pollution rules eliminated. Environmental groups, public health officials and citizens asked the EPA not to repeal the Obama administration’s greenhouse limits, a move that is also highly unlikely, given President Donald Trump’s repeated promises to kill his predecessor’s signature climate change initiative."

Dozens of Murray Energy miners attended.
(New York Times photo by Mark Trent.)

Murray Energy CEO Bob Murray and 25 of his employees in mining gear showed up to support the proposal. Murray is a staunch Trump supporter and stands to benefit heavily from a recent EPA proposal that favors coal power plants. He testified that the Clean Power Plan would eliminate even more coal jobs and would impose "massive costs on the power sector and American consumers," Schwartz reports.

"Scott Segal, the head of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, said the CPP is expensive and illegal because it requires some utilities to reduce emissions “beyond the fence line” or far away from the power plants themselves," Kara Van Pelt reports for Reuters.

Environmental groups and other opponents of the proposal held their own event nearby at the University of Charleston. Ben Levitan of the Environmental Defense Fund, Liz Perera of the Sierra Club, and Lindsay Pace of the Moms Clean Air Force spoke there about the importance of reducing greenhouse gases to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Back at the official EPA hearing, opponents of the proposal spoke up too. Retired Kentucky coal miner and activist Stanley Sturgill, who has black lung disease, testified that repealing the Clean Power Plan was "immoral and indefensible," Schwartz reports. "We're dying, literally dying, for you to help us," Sturgill said.

"EPA Regional Administrator Cosmo Servidio said that the agency hasn’t yet decided whether it will schedule additional public hearings, and also hasn’t set a timeline for announcing what kind of replacement rule it will propose to meet the legal requirement — kicked in by a 2009 finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare — that it take some steps to address the issue," Ward reports.

from The Rural Blog http://ift.tt/2ngcuZ9 EPA holds public hearing in W.Va. about rolling back Obama-era power plant carbon emissions - Entrepreneur Generations

Posted by Entrepreneur Generations

Tweet