By: Barbara Weber, California Field Organizer
Date: October 1, 2026
About: Docket # EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0124-2920
To: EPA
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Barbara Weber, and I serve as the California Field Organizer for Moms Clean Air Force. While I am not a mother myself, I am a proud aunt, and I have spent more than a decade as a climate and clean air advocate working to protect the health of future generations. I am here to strongly oppose EPA's proposal to rescind its greenhouse gas findings for power plants, and the rollback of the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards that came before it.
Fossil-fueled power plants produce roughly a quarter of the climate pollution in the United States. The Clean Air Act gives EPA a clear responsibility to limit that pollution. If finalized, this proposal would declare that the law no longer does that while stripping away every remaining limit and tying the hands of future administrations. We understand what is happening here: an attempt to erase the Clean Air Act's power to protect us from climate pollution, first from our tailpipes and now from power plant smokestacks. Weakening climate pollution limits at the very moment energy demand is surging from data center expansion isn't just dangerous; it defies common sense.
The health costs are staggering, and EPA refused to count them. Using EPA's own emissions projections, the Environmental Defense Fund estimates that the rollback EPA just finalized will cause, by 2047, up to 84,000 premature deaths, 29 million asthma attacks, more than 100,000 hospital and emergency room visits, and 13 million lost work and school days. The impacts of the proposal before you today could go even further.
For me, this is personal. I live in Santa Monica, in a region that has had the worst smog in the nation in 26 of the last 27 years. Across California, 7 million children breathe unhealthy air. This summer was the hottest on record in the lower 48 states. We know that climate change is driving increasingly hot temperatures and more intense wildfires, all of which make air pollution worse. Children, pregnant people, older adults, and low-income communities and communities of color bear the heaviest burden. Every source of greenhouse pollution contributes to the climate chaos we’re all increasingly experiencing.
Because Californians live with the consequences of climate change every day, we understand our responsibility to act. Under SB 100, we are on a path to 100 percent clean electricity by 2045, and our cap-and-invest program now runs through that same year. Two-thirds of our electricity already comes from clean sources, and power sector emissions have been cut in half since 2009 while our economy has grown and California has become home to more clean energy jobs than any other state. Our battery storage has grown from under 700 megawatts in 2019 to more than 21,000 today, and this year, for the first time, Californians used more solar than gas. California is proof that cleaning up the power sector is achievable, but no state can solve climate pollution alone. As data centers drive up electricity demand, the answer is to meet it with clean energy and storage, not to let power plants pollute without limits.
EPA's mission is to protect human health and the environment. I urge you to withdraw this proposal, preserve the Clean Air Act's authority to limit climate pollution from power plants, and restore strong, lifesaving standards. Our children's health and future depend on it. Thank you.