NRCM news release
June 19, 2019 – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today took the final step of replacing the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) with an alternative that will increase levels of harmful air pollution nationwide, endangering human health and increasing premature deaths. Most at risk from this rollback will be children, seniors, and those with asthma and respiratory difficulties. EPA’s rule also puts at risk U.S. efforts to curb climate-changing pollution and replace fossil fuels with clean energy.
In response, Maine’s largest environmental advocacy group, the Natural Resources Council of Maine, released the following statement from Federal Outreach Coordinator Kristin Jackson:
“The EPA’s action today shows a blatant disregard for established climate science and an alarming ambivalence toward public health, wildlife, and our natural resources. This weak and misguided rollback ignores the conclusion of essentially all of the world’s climate scientists who believe that humans are causing climate change and that a rapid transition to clean energy is required to minimize harm to human health, our economy, the environment, and global stability.
This plan is further evidence of the Trump Administration’s unprecedented, government-wide attack on science, and is a blatant effort to prop up the coal industry and hinder the nation’s transition to lower carbon energy sources. As a result, we’ll see an acceleration of the climate impacts already devastating our public health, environment, and economy.
“We urge Maine’s Congressional delegation to pressure the EPA to reverse course on this proposed rule. It is past time for Congress and our federal government to take real action to reduce carbon pollution and strengthen the nation’s commitment to energy independence by investing in clean energy, not weakening it at the expense of public health and the environment.”
A recent study found that the EPA’s replacement rule, dubbed the “Affordable Clean Energy Rule,” will result in more carbon pollution than if the EPA had no replacement at all.