Today, the Trump Administration issued a proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency to roll back the agency’s Clean Air Act Section 111 carbon pollution standards, which limit climate-disrupting greenhouse gas emissions from gas- and coal-fired power plants. This comes as Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin have proposed to end over 30 provisions in place to limit pollution and protect the health of Americans.
The proposal falsely claims that power plant greenhouse gas emissions “do not contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution.” In fact, the power sector is the largest stationary source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, and releases more climate pollution than over half of all the world’s countries combined.
According to the Sierra Club’s estimates in the Trump Coal Pollution Dashboard, repealing the Section 111 carbon pollution standards would allow some of the largest plants to release nearly seven times as much carbon dioxide. It would also increase emissions of pollutants that lead to higher risk of heart disease, stroke, asthma and other respiratory diseases, pregnancy complications, and cancer.
The proposed repeal will now face a public comment period.
In response, Sierra Club Climate Policy Director Patrick Drupp issued the following response:
“It’s completely reprehensible that Donald Trump would seek to roll back these lifesaving standards and do more harm to the American people and our planet just to earn some brownie points with the fossil fuel industry. This repeal means more climate disasters, more heart attacks, more asthma attacks, more birth defects, more premature deaths.
“This administration is transparently trading American lives for campaign dollars and the support of fossil fuel companies, and Americans ought to be disgusted and outraged that their government has launched an assault on our health and our future. The Sierra Club will not stand by and let this corrupt administration destroy these critical, lifesaving guardrails.”
This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.