By: Patrice Tomcik, National Field Director, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: January 8, 2025
About: NOx New Source Performance Standards, Docket #EPA-HQ-OAR-2024-0419
To: EPA
My name is Patrice Tomcik, and I am the National Field Director for Moms Clean Air Force, a community of 1.5 million moms united to equitably protect children’s health from air pollution and climate change.
I live in Gibsonia, Pennsylvania, located within the Greater Pittsburgh region, with my husband and my two young children. I appreciate EPA’s efforts to strengthen limits on emissions of nitrogen oxides from most new, modified, and reconstructed fossil fuel-fired combustion turbines. However, I ask EPA to further strengthen nitrogen oxide protections in the final version of the rule and expand the use of continuous emissions monitoring. These turbines are capable of achieving greater reductions in pollution with the same technologies proposed in the rule and our children deserve the most health protective pollution limits.
This proposed rulemaking is long overdue. I have been advocating for stronger protections from power plants and other industrial facility pollutants for over a decade. At the same time, I have seen the rapid increase of fracked gas wells in my community and the Appalachian region. Because of this easily accessible methane fuel source, it is no wonder that the U.S. Energy Information Administration has forecasted the Appalachian region to be primed for many methane gas-fired turbine power plant additions. Also, the planned ARCH2 hydrogen hub and petrochemical expansion in the region would increase the number of new gas-fired turbines for these industrial facilities resulting in more air pollution for decades to come.
Fossil-fuel-fired turbines emit harmful nitrogen oxides that also contribute to the formation of ground level ozone (smog) and fine particulate matter (soot). These pollutants increase the risks of asthma, cardiovascular issues, and respiratory infections such as bronchitis.
I have lived my whole life in Southwestern Pennsylvania and grew up living two miles downwind from the Cheswick power generating station, which shuttered in 2022. As a child, I watched the plumes from the stacks of the power plant float over the river toward my school playground. I missed a lot of school due to chronic bronchitis, and now as an adult, I have respiratory problems. My mother has a chronic cough and respiratory problems. My father had COPD and a heart attack requiring quintuple bypass surgery before he passed two years ago. It is well-known that the Greater Pittsburgh Region has some of the worst air pollution in the nation, according to the American Lung Association.
Because nitrogen oxides can travel long distances, the air quality across the Appalachian region could be greatly affected, which is especially concerning for children’s health. Children are uniquely vulnerable to air pollution because their bodies are still developing. For children like mine, not only would they be exposed to harmful gas-fired turbine pollution from the planned power plant and industrial buildout, but they would continue to be exposed to the pollution from fracked gas operations that extract, process, and transport the methane used to fuel the turbines. My youngest son is a cancer survivor, and I know his immune system is compromised, which makes him very vulnerable to pollution. This is why I am so passionate about my work for Moms Clean Air Force but recognize that I can’t control the air my son breathes and rely on EPA to do their job and protect him from harmful air pollution.
In summary, I thank EPA for your efforts to strengthen limits on emissions of nitrogen oxides from new fossil fuel-fired combustion turbines along with the use of selective catalytic reduction and the proposed requirement to continuously monitor these emissions. I ask EPA to further strengthen nitrogen oxide protections in the final version of the rule to protect the health of our children for decades to come.