By: Karin Stein, Iowa Field Organizer, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: July 8, 2025
About: Environmental Protection Agency Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0124-0001
To: Environmental Protection Agency
Hello. My name is Karin Stein. I live in Central Iowa, and I am the Iowa Field Organizer for Moms Clean Air Force, a national organization that fights every day to protect our children from air pollution and the climate crisis. I strongly oppose EPA’s proposal to roll back the Carbon Rule and am calling on EPA to preserve the strongest possible standards for power plants.
Fossil fueled power plants are responsible for almost one-quarter of the climate pollution generated by the U.S. I think about the climate crisis regularly, almost every day. Almost every day, one reads about yet another climate extreme disaster in the U.S. and around the world. I am often filled with anguish when I think about what my daughters' lives will be like when I am no longer here to help. Will they lose their homes? Will they have enough to eat? Will new diseases and more frequent pandemics rob them of their lives’ potential? Will they watch their loved ones die from the consequences of climate change? Will governments be unable to manage the chaos that could ensue from major, relentless climate disasters? These are no longer topics for science fiction movies. You and I know that these could easily become real-life scenarios in future decades.
I watch how the climate crisis affects all the places where I have lived and where I have loved ones, mostly in Latin America and here in the United States. I am seeing every day the impacts of the climate pollution that is heating up our planet and supercharging extreme weather. My brother and sister are struggling on our family farm in Costa Rica, in good part because of climate change. My cousin in Colombia is experiencing the same problem on his farm. In Iowa, we keep experiencing ever-increasing, severe storms.
In mid-May 2025, when Minnesota is usually cold and wet, wildfires were raging there and 9 million people in adjacent areas were under a red flag advisory for extreme fire danger. 2024 was a record-breaking year for tornadoes in Iowa. In 2023, we had a severe hail storm that once again caused millions of dollars in damage in my area. My house was spared the worst, but we had to replace our roof, which was new. Our insurance covered most of that expense, but insurance companies are beginning to withdraw coverage from high-risk areas and support climate action. I have lived in the same house for 40 years, and I have observed the intensity and pace of natural disasters in our area increase markedly in the last eight years.
In 2020, a massive derecho storm during the pandemic destroyed buildings and cornfields and caused an estimated 11 billion dollars in economic damage. Major insurance companies are declaring they will no longer insure new property in California because of climate change; when will this happen in Iowa? It is a matter of time, and we’ll be left to our own devices to deal with the fallout of climate disasters. We desperately need rules that make us safer, faster.
Furthermore, the greenhouse gases from our power plants right here in Iowa, enter the global atmosphere and contribute to making the lives of my siblings and cousins abroad less safe every day. EPA’s carbon rule will make the U.S., which is the second biggest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, a better neighbor.
Aside from the contribution of carbon-fueled power plants to the climate crisis, there is also the serious danger posed by these plants to human health. It is no coincidence that the regions in western Iowa, eastern Nebraska, and southeast South Dakota, where some of the most polluting power plants in the country operate, also have the highest asthma rates in Iowa. A 2025 Reuters article and a detailed health study of northwest Iowa reflect this reality.
I call on EPA to protect the health and climate safety of current and future generations by NOT rolling back the Carbon Rule.
Thank you.