By: Vanessa Lynch, Pennsylvania Campaigns Coordinator
Date: October 1, 2026
About: Docket # EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0124-2920
To: EPA
My name is Vanessa Lynch, and I am the Pennsylvania Campaign Coordinator for Moms Clean Air Force. Moms Clean Air Force’s Pennsylvania Chapter represents over 109,000 parents united against air pollution—and the urgent crisis of our changing climate—to equitably protect children’s health. I live in the Pittsburgh area in southwest Pennsylvania with my husband and two children. Southwest Pennsylvania is the target of 10 fossil fuel power plants, including up to almost 25 GW of proposed generation.
Fossil fuel power plants are responsible for 27% of the climate pollution generated by Pennsylvania. I strongly oppose EPA’s proposal to repeal greenhouse gas standards for power plants. As our region expects astronomical growth in air pollution from power plants, strong climate pollution standards for power plants couldn’t be more important.
Two of the biggest greenhouse gas polluting coal-fired power plants in the United States are located in Pennsylvania—the Keystone and Conemaugh electric generating stations. These two coal power plants were slated to be decommissioned in 2028 but have now been extended to 2032. These plants already received MATS exemptions via Trump’s EPA mercury pollution pass, which likely means their carbon pollution will increase as well.
Pennsylvania families like mine deserve the strongest protection possible from climate-warming carbon pollution and other forms of health-harming air pollution emitted from power plants, like particle pollution (also known as soot), sulfur dioxide, and smog-forming nitrogen oxide. EPA must not weaken climate pollution protections.
Climate change worsens air quality. Wildfires, exacerbated by climate change, are erasing decades of progress on cleaning up the air. In July, Canadian wildfire smoke reached Pittsburgh causing very unhealthy air in our region, reaching Code Maroon levels with an air quality index peaking at over 300. In the 2025 State of the Air report by the American Lung Association, the Pittsburgh area ranked 16th worst in the country for daily particle pollution and is the 12th most polluted area nationwide for year-round particle pollution. By addressing climate change, limiting climate pollution from the power sector helps to indirectly address air pollution.
Appalachia, where I live, is at a disproportionately high risk of increases in the number of new fossil fuel-fired power plants generating greenhouse gas emissions, making us especially vulnerable to rollbacks on climate protections for the power sector. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, most new natural gas plants are being built in the Gulf Coast, Appalachia, and Florida.
EPA’s authority to limit greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector deserves to be protected rather than destroyed, especially for Pennsylvanians facing an exponentially accelerating pollution burden created by power plants. I encourage you NOT to rescind EPA’s greenhouse gas standards for power plants for the sake of Pennsylvania’s children.