Dear Administrator Zeldin,
I write you to oppose EPA’s proposal to stop all future efforts to control greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel power plants. The Agency’s proposal that the 2009 conclusion that greenhouse gas emissions are not air pollutants under the Clean Air Act and that those pollutants do not endanger public health or welfare is flawed. All credible scientific evidence since that original 2009 decision has only clarified how large the health dangers posed by ever-increasing greenhouse gases are. In recent years we have seen record rainfall and heat records continue to fall, driven by relentless heat waves, flooding and drought events. We have seen warmer temperatures drive up pollution from wildfires that have blanketed vast areas of the country in choking smoke. It cannot be denied that fossil fuel-burning power plants are responsible for about 25% of all US greenhouse gas emissions and are contributing to these growing threats.
Your efforts to both deny the science showing these increasing dangers from greenhouse gas emissions and claim that EPA does not have the legal authority to address the problem by requiring large sources of this pollution to dramatically reduce those emissions is legally, morally and historically wrong. Denying the health damage being done and refusing to act to control emissions causing health problems for millions of Americans is unconscionable. Over 50 years ago, the architects of the Clean Air Act understood the vast economic and political significance of the legislation they were constructing and the task with which they entrusted the EPA. As Senator Muskie, the Act’s preeminent advocate, introduced the 1970 legislation on the Senate floor, he warned his colleagues that air pollution, if unchecked, would continue to “threaten irreversible atmospheric and climatic changes.” You must respect the intent of the authors of the legislation, must respect the collected science on global warming causes already accepted by the rest of the world’s nations and must act to protect Americans from threats as instructed by the federal Clean Air Act.
