By: Samantha Johnstone, Public Engagement Intern, 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 Samantha Johnstone.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I am an intern with Moms Clean Air Force and the Environmental Defense Fund. Today I would like to tell you why the Greenhouse Gas Standards for Power Plants Rule is extremely important to me, and why I staunchly oppose efforts to roll it back.
I grew up in Northern California in a tight-knit community just south of San Francisco. Unfortunately, my home has been plagued with particularly strong wildfires in the past few years—worsened by drought and higher temperatures driven by climate pollution that is heating the planet, intensifying weather extremes and increasing favorable conditions for dangerous wildfires.
During elementary and middle school, from August 2009 to June 2018, I never once had a day off from school due to wildfire smoke. While there were certainly smaller wildfires throughout the state, it was never of an unsafe magnitude that interfered with my education.
In November 2018, the fall semester of my freshman year of high school, I had school cancelled for the very first time. Camp Fire was the largest and deadliest recorded fire in Northern California’s history. CalMatters reported that 1,649 schools closed, impacting 935,431 kids. That's 15% of our state’s population. Thankfully, my school district was only closed for one day, but others were closed for up to 11.
By the time I graduated in Spring 2022, I had missed several more days of school instruction and had innumerable cancelled gym periods and sports practices, mandated indoor lunches and readjusted schedules to minimize the time spent walking outside between classes all due to wildfire smoke.
I can still picture September 9, 2020, when the entire Bay Area was covered in a thick orange smog that covered the sun and created a dystopian midnight sky at 10 AM. I can still feel the burn in the back of my throat after taking a breath in. I can still hear my little cousin’s cries as he got news of his house burning down.
These experiences are not normal. And for most of my childhood, these issues did not plague California’s communities to the same extent that they do today.
Fossil fuel power plants are responsible for nearly 25% of climate pollution generated in the United States. Science tells us that this pollution is fueling global warming, which is making wildfires—and all the particulate pollution and smog they bring with them—more likely and intense.
Strong climate pollution standards for power plants are necessary to protect our environment and families across the nation. Children are forced to go to school when wildfires are raging, and they can’t breathe when all that smoke is filling their lungs. That pollution isn’t just painful to breathe—it also increases the risk of a multitude of serious health harms such as asthma attacks, heart attacks or early death.
I am here today to express my utter opposition to rolling back the carbon rule. This rule is vital to protecting everyone in the U.S. from the harmful greenhouse gas emissions that are endangering human health, contributing to global warming, and exacerbating weather events such as wildfires.
If you decide to weaken these standards, you will jeopardize the health and lives of people across the nation. Thank you for listening.