By: Kindra Weid, Electric School Bus Outreach Coordinator, 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
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Kindra Weid. I am a critical care registered nurse and am advocating on behalf of Moms Clean Air Force, Michigan Clinicians for Climate Action, and the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments. I am speaking with you from southeastern Michigan and testifying in direct opposition to the rollback of the Carbon Rule.
Fossil-fueled power plants are responsible for approximately one-quarter of the climate pollution generated by the U.S. I supported the Carbon Rule when it was finalized in 2024 because it protected public health and the environment by addressing climate pollution from new gas-burning power plants and existing coal-burning power plants. Rolling back these protections is the wrong move. It will cause worsening air quality and do nothing to limit climate warming emissions—both of which will result in health harms.
Not only am I a nurse with 25 years of experience, but I have also been an air quality and climate advocate since 2015. The body of research linking public health outcomes to air pollution and climate change has grown exponentially during that time. I have watched as past iterations and attempts to slow climate pollution have been overturned and fallen victim to political party power shifts, which is the case once again. Health and a livable planet should not be partisan issues.
Climate change threatens our health and well-being in numerous ways. Impacts of climate change include more severe heat waves, drought, sea-level rise, extreme climate and weather events, exacerbated air pollution, coastal flooding, and wildfires.
As nurses, we see the health impacts of climate change at the bedside in the form of exacerbations of chronic heart and lung conditions due to poor air quality, heat exhaustion and stroke, and increasing rates of vector-borne diseases, to name just a few. In the past month alone, I have cared for patients suffering from Lyme disease, heat stroke, and acute exacerbation of COPD related to extreme heat and humidity. These are DIRECT health outcomes related to our warming climate, which is fueled in part by emissions from power plants.
Climate change is an issue of generational justice. Today’s children will live through at least 3 times as many climate disasters as their grandparents.
Communities of color, which are hit first and worst by climate disasters, are also hit harder by the psychological impacts of climate change.
Cleaning up smokestack pollution from fossil fuel power plants can provide cleaner air and a safer, more stable climate.
It will also protect public health. According to EPA’s analysis of the final version of the Carbon Rule, in 2035 alone, the proposed standards would prevent approximately:
- 1,200 premature deaths;
- 870 hospital and emergency room visits;
- 1,900 cases of asthma onset;
- 360,000 cases of asthma symptoms;
- 48,000 school absence days; and
- 57,000 lost workdays.
Reversing or rolling back this rule does not make sense and does not align with the mission of EPA.
Once again, I support this Carbon Rule and am calling on EPA to protect our families from harmful greenhouse gas pollution that contributes to climate change and the many ways climate change impacts public health. Time is too precious to be flip-flopping on these rules- actual lives are at stake. I strongly oppose rolling back the protections set forth in the Carbon Rule and encourage its implementation.