This was written by Osasenaga Idahor, Environmental Health Intern, Moms Clean Air Force:
I’m a summer intern at Moms Clean Air Force. One of the first things I did on the job is testify at EPA in support of stronger federal standards to cut carbon pollution from power plants. This isn’t your typical college internship!
When I testified, I told my story about growing up in Boston, Massachusetts, and taking the train to school. I would pass by an old electrical substation on my route, and I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time. But now I know that old substations can leak toxic chemicals.
In my industrial neighborhood, this old substation was allowed to languish, just as aging infrastructure is languishing at power plants across the country. Often, the worst effects of power plant pollution hit communities of color the hardest, just like the pollution from that old substation hit my community in Boston the hardest.
Now we know better. So we need to do better.
EPA’s proposed standards are a good start, but they need to be stronger. That’s what we need you to tell EPA when you take action and sign our petition to urge EPA to cut climate pollution from power plants.
EPA’s proposal also contains considerations for potentially dangerous, poorly regulated technologies to remove carbon from the atmosphere like advanced carbon capture and storage. Guess where this unproven technology would be most highly concentrated, and where it could inflict the most damage? Communities of color.
We need EPA to do better by centering environmental justice in every rulemaking. Let’s focus on stronger standards for power plants, and keep climate pollution out of the air in the first place. Prevention is less costly than cure, and that’s what this misguided focus on carbon capture is: it’s closing the barn door after the horses have already gotten out.
Please join me today in sending a strong message to EPA.