By: Isabel Gonzalez Whitaker, Vice President, Public Engagement, 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
My name is Isabel Gonzalez Whitaker, and I work for Moms Clean Air Force and live in Memphis, TN., the asthma capital of the state thanks to significant industrial, power, and transportation pollution. I am testifying to express my strong opposition to EPA’s proposal to repeal carbon pollution protections for power plants. Rolling back these protections will increase climate pollution from one of the most significant sources – power plants -- and lead to more health problems for millions of people including my son who has respiratory issues requiring daily management.
Tennessee has 17 gas-fired plants and 4 coal-fired plants, and one of the largest plants in the state is just five miles from our house. Millions of tons of carbon dioxide are emitted from these plants, which contribute considerably to global warming—warming that is already leading todevastating health outcomes. One of the most alarming impacts of climate change is that it’s making air quality worse: hotter days mean more smog; more intense wildfires mean smokier, more dangerous air; and changing weather patterns mean that pollen seasons are getting worse, too. All of these changes are deeply concerning for people living with asthma, including my son.. I spent this spring in and out of ERs with my son due to severe asthma attacks unlike any he’d experienced before. Rolling back protections against heat-trapping greenhouse gas pollution will lead to more global warming—and more visits to the ER, more school days missed, and more anxiety and fear not just for me and my family but for hundreds of thousands of families across the state.
Climate protections for power plants were designed to protect families like mine. In addition to limiting dangerous global warming, these safeguards also help reduce other harmful pollutants emitted from power plants like the one near my home, including asthma-triggering particle pollution and smog-forming nitrogen oxides. The pollutants emitted from these plants worsen health issues for people in cities like Memphis.
I urge you to think of all these families and their children gasping for air as you consider rolling back these critical safeguards. Please keep strong climate pollution protections for power plants in place.