By: Elizabeth Bechard, Senior Policy Analyst, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: June 13, 2023
About: Environmental Protection Agency Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2023-0072
To: Environmental Protection Agency
My name is Elizabeth Bechard, and I am a Senior Policy Analyst for Moms Clean Air Force. I live in Essex, Vermont, with my partner and seven-year-old twins. I support EPA’s proposal to limit carbon emissions from fossil fuel power plants and ask that EPA finalize these standards as quickly as possible. And I echo the concerns of community members who worry about how carbon capture and storage will affect their lives and their families.
Along with much of the rest of the East Coast last week, my family stayed indoors for several days as smoky air from Canadian wildfires blanketed our community. My seven-year-old son has both ADHD and sensory processing disorder—when he cannot play outside, this child literally climbs the walls. Last summer, when we lived in North Carolina, there were multiple stretches of extreme heat that made it unsafe for him to play outside because a medication he was taking made his little body more sensitive to the high temperatures.
Having to keep any energetic child indoors is both stressful and heartbreaking for parents, especially when we know that it didn’t have to be this way. We know that human-caused climate change is making both wildfires and episodes of extreme heat more frequent and intense. One of my close friends texted me last week on a day when the smoke was especially bad and asked: “Is this what the rest of our kids’ childhood is going to be like?”
How do you answer a question like that? I’m already dreading the day when my children themselves ask: “Is this what the rest of our childhood is going to be like?”
Our children, future generations, and other vulnerable communities have contributed the least to the problem of climate change, and yet they are the ones who will bear the heaviest burdens as impacts like wildfires and extreme heat continue to worsen. This is profoundly unjust, and we have a moral responsibility to act now by reducing carbon pollution as quickly as possible.
We also have a moral responsibility to ensure that the ways we address climate change don’t add more to the unconscionable weight that environmental justice communities and younger generations are already carrying. While I don’t live in a community that is immediately facing the concerns of carbon capture and storage, I can’t imagine the burden for families of worrying both about climate impacts and the potential dangers of technology that isn’t adequately regulated and hasn’t been tested at scale.
I wish I could tell my children that the wildfire smoke and extreme heat won’t come again, but I know that they will. Yet it is not too late for us to act on climate, and we are at a critical moment of choice: although fossil fuel power plants have contributed a quarter of the carbon pollution causing climate change, it doesn’t have to be this way moving forward. We have abundant sources of clean, renewable, and sustainable energy, like wind and solar. We can, and must, make choices that protect both communities and future generations.
I applaud EPA for taking action to reduce climate pollution from power plants because the consequences of our failure to act become clearer every day. And EPA must strengthen community input and safeguards in the final version of this rule. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.