Today, dozens of Moms’ staff and members from states across the country are speaking out. They’re calling in all day to give testimony at EPA’s virtual public hearing on its proposed repeal of the 2024 rule to cut climate-warming carbon pollution from power plants. They’re sharing heartfelt personal stories of their own encounters with climate impacts—how Canadian wildfire smoke has triggered asthma attacks, how family members who worked at coal plants became ill, how living through extreme weather has created lifelong mental health effects.
Tell EPA: Hands Off Climate Pollution Limits for Power Plants
All Moms agree repealing the power plant rule would be a grave mistake, putting our families’ health and future at risk. We’re collectively grappling with the idea of a future without pollution limits and with more climate destruction versus our hopes for our children. My daughter is an artist who wants to be an animator when she grows up. I worry that to get a job she may need to move to California, a state experiencing some of global warming’s worst impacts—rampant wildfires, extreme heat and drought, terrible soot and smog pollution. I want to tell her the sky’s the limit, but if EPA stops regulating greenhouse gas pollution, is that even possible any longer? Would I be telling her the truth?
It all weighs so heavy.
But processing this fear for our children’s hopes and futures feels a little lighter when we’re in it, and taking action, together. These excerpts from a few of today’s most impactful, relatable Moms’ testimonies about why not to repeal the power plant rule will help ease the heaviness. I know they did for me.
Fabiola Bedoya, Arizona
“High temperatures don’t just make kids uncomfortable, they interfere with their ability to learn, grow, and thrive. Extreme heat leads to measurable learning losses in schools. Children cannot concentrate or retain information as well in overheated classrooms, and these losses can translate into billions of dollars in future lost earnings across generations. At just 2 degrees Celsius of global warming, the lost income for each cohort of graduating students could reach nearly $7 billion annually.
“But this crisis doesn’t affect all children equally. Kids of color and those from lower-income families are far less likely to attend schools with functioning air conditioning. That means extreme heat is only deepening existing disparities in education, health, and opportunity.
“As a mother, I’ve seen how heat limits where my son can safely play. He can’t run around in the park like I did growing up. He comes home with heat exhaustion from simply playing at school… We are allowing fossil fuel pollution to rob our children of their health, their education, and their future.”
Read Fabiola’s full testimony here.
Lorna Perez, Florida
“We saw the effects that Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton had on Florida in 2024, and we are still recovering. Some of my friends’ houses were completely flooded, and they are still dealing with making sure that there is no hazardous mold, which can exacerbate asthma. They have ripped out damaged walls and rebuilt whole rooms of their houses.
“There are more than 396,000 people living in poverty in my home, the Tampa Bay area… When climate change-fueled disasters like Helene and Milton hit, it is far more challenging for people living in poverty to recover economically from damage to homes, businesses, and community infrastructure. When extreme weather increases health care costs, it is those who are least able to pay for these costs who experience the most harm.”
Read Lorna’s full testimony here.
Karin Stein, Iowa
“Fossil fuel power plants are responsible for almost one-quarter of the climate pollution generated by the U.S. Almost every day, one reads about yet another extreme climate disaster in the U.S. or 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.”
Read Karin’s full testimony here.
Maria Finnegan, New Hampshire
“I grew up here in New Hampshire, with what many would call an “old-fashioned” childhood—running through the woods, playing outside in every season, immersed in nature. Even when I moved to a city for college, I knew I wanted to return home someday to raise my children in that same environment.
“I finally moved back in 2018, but the homecoming was not what I expected. While the towns looked the same, the weather had changed dramatically. Our crisp September air and deep winter freezes had been replaced by December flooding, 60-degree days in February, and dangerous heat domes in the summer. It was unsettling and became downright frightening when I had my son in 2020.
“The climate crisis is no longer abstract. It’s here. And our children are inheriting it.”
Read Maria’s full testimony here.
Tell EPA: Hands Off Climate Pollution Limits for Power Plants