By: Osasenaga Idahor, Environmental Health Intern, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: June 13, 2023
About: Environmental Protection Agency Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2023-0072
To: Environmental Protection Agency
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Osasenaga Idahor. I’m a student at Harvard and currently interning at Moms Clean Air Force. I am from Boston, Massachusetts. I support EPA’s proposal to limit greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel power plants, but I ask that EPA reevaluate its investment into carbon capture and storage implementation. Without further ado, here is why.
It would be barely past the crack of dawn, and there I would be, late to catch my train ride to school again. Every day, in my rush to catch my train to school, I would run by this decades-old Eversource electric power substation. I did not mind the aging electric power substation because I was more concerned with more important things in my life, like getting to school on time. Part of it was that I understood living in my neighborhood could be worse. Because I understood then that the environmental impact of an old electric substation is not the same as that of a waste incinerator or an actual power plant. But substations have their own environmental impact that ought not to be ignored. I was fortunate to be far away from the substation as I ran by, but today, people in my community still wait at the bus stop right next to the chain-linked fence surrounding the substation. While they wait, they are potentially exposed to a chemical called sulfur hexafluoride that can leak from aging substation infrastructure, and this chemical can make people sick when inhaled. That is a general concern with our country's aging electrical infrastructure. But with our electricity-generating power plants, the concern is harmful toxins and greenhouse gas emissions. And you know those emissions contribute to climate change, indirectly making our communities sicker.
By choosing to overlook the substation, I settled for the historical perception that environmental health was not a priority in my neighborhood. I settled for second-class environmental health because, hey, at least it wasn’t third-class. In doing so, I was also settling for the centuries-old precedent, the status quo, that environmental justice in my neighborhood, a historically industrial area, was a second-class matter and not a priority. In my ignorance, I let the status quo slide in my community. But for environmental justice populations, the status quo is not enough. Now, by God’s grace, I know better. And EPA knows better. So we must do better now and fight against environmental injustice. Unfortunately, this proposed policy is not adequately fighting against environmental injustice and may actually contribute to further environmental injustice. Yes, the proposed EPA standards are a great step in limiting carbon emissions from power plants, but I want you to know it is still not enough for the most vulnerable communities. This proposal from EPA has several considerations for removing greenhouse gases from our atmosphere through advanced carbon capture, utilization, and storage technologies. And I want to warn you all about this technology. Don’t make the same mistake—the same type of environmental injustice—with carbon capture and storage that goes back over a century in this country. We ought to have learned from our historical errors in testing potentially dangerous, poorly regulated technology and then placing this technology in communities of color. I know we all want to solve this climate change crisis. But our rush should not come at the further expense of already burdened communities. Use somewhere else as your test site. And let’s be clear. Currently, these proposed standards are inadequate to meet the urgency of our current climate crisis. But they are an essential step.
Therefore, I support EPA’s proposal to limit greenhouse emissions from fossil fuel power plants. But I ask that EPA reevaluate its heavy investment into carbon capture and storage implementation.
Thank you.