By: Almeta Cooper, National Manager, Health Justice
Date: October 1, 2026
About: Docket # EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0124-2920
To: EPA
My name is Almeta Cooper. I live in Washington, DC, and am the National Manager, Health Justice, for Moms Clean Air Force. We are 1.6 million moms, dads, and caregivers nationally who are united in protecting clean air and our children’s health.
I am here today to urge the EPA (1) not to rescind the findings that climate pollution from power plants harms human health and and welfare and (2) to strongly oppose ongoing attacks on the climate protections needed to safeguard our children's health and future, including EPA rule making actions to remove lifesaving limits on climate pollution from power plants.
It is EPA and Secretary Zeldin’s clear responsibility to protect clean air and to limit the pollution that is driving climate chaos and endangering human health and welfare.
As an African American woman and because of my life experiences, I care deeply about environmental, climate and health justice. As a grandmother of a one-year grandson, I worry about the long-lasting health harms connected to air and climate pollution that are affecting health—especially our nation’s most vulnerable populations in Black, Brown, and low-income communities, and in particular, our children.
Children’s developing bodies and brains make them more susceptible to the harmful effects of soot and greenhouse gases emitted by power plants. Power plants are responsible for roughly a quarter of climate-heating pollution in the U.S. Approximately 60% of power generation comes from burning fossil fuels like coal and so-called natural gas or hydrocarbons. Power plants are often located in and near Black, Brown, and low-income communities who must bear the worst impacts of air and climate pollution. The 2026 American Lung Association State the Air report also shows that a person of color in the U.S. is more than twice as likely as a white individual to live in a community with a failing grade on all three pollution measures. Air and climate pollution worsen the health burden on Black children with asthma who live in these communities and have nearly two times the incidence of the disease than other children. And we are seeing a dangerous emerging trend of data centers piling on to this burden by building their own power plants.
EPA has the authority and responsibility to address these environmental injustices and must assure that these communities have input and protection against these ongoing health harms.
In closing on behalf of my grandson and all children, I urge EPA and Secretary Zeldin (1) not to rescind the findings that climate and air pollution from power plants harms human health and and welfare as well as I ask that the Clean Air Act be enforced, and (2) I urge EPA and Secretary Zeldin to strongly oppose ongoing attacks on the climate protections needed to safeguard our children's health and future, including all EPA actions to remove lifesaving limits on climate pollution from power plants.