DENVER — Hundreds of people across the country lined up Tuesday to tell the Environmental Protection Agency that its new rules for power-plant pollution either go too far or not far enough.
The agency is holding hearings this week in Atlanta, Denver, Pittsburgh and Washington on President Barack Obama’s plan to cut carbon-dioxide emissions by 30 percent by 2030, with 2005 levels as the starting point. The rules are intended to curb global warming.
Coal mines, electric utilities, labor unions, environmental groups, renewable energy companies, government agencies, religious and civil rights organizations and others sent representatives to the hearings.
John Kinkaid, a Moffat County, Colorado, commissioner, told the EPA in Denver the rules would devastate his area, home to a major power plant.
“Energy is the lifeblood of our economy,” he said. “Moffat County deserves better than to be turned into another Detroit, Michigan.”
Retired coal miner Stanley Sturgill of Harlan County, Kentucky, traveled to Denver to tell the EPA that coal-fired plants are crippling his health and the public’s. Sturgill said he suffers from black lung and other respiratory diseases.
“The rule does not do nearly enough to protect the health of the front-line communities,” he said. “We’re dying, literally dying, for you to help us.”
In Atlanta, Jim Doyle, president of Business Forward and a former Commerce Department official in the Clinton administration, said the benefits of fighting climate change — and the extreme weather it is blamed for — outweigh the potential costs. “Over the past four years, American factories have been disrupted by typhoons in Thailand, hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, droughts in Texas, tornadoes in Kentucky, falling water levels across the Great Lakes and flooding in the Northeast,” he said.
Others at the Atlanta hearing said the rules could raise electricity prices and cause job losses without significantly curtailing global carbon emissions. As U.S. utilities switch to natural gas, more U.S. coal is being shipped and burned overseas.
With only five minutes each to address the EPA, scores of advocates in Denver staged rallies for or against the proposed rules.
“They’re basically trying to shut down coal, which takes away my job,” said Mike Zimmerman, a foreman at the Twentymile Mine in northwestern Colorado, who attended a rally sponsored by Americans for Prosperity.
At a rally staged by a group called Colorado Moms Know Best, Jaime Travis said the rules would cause some disruption but should be implemented. “It won’t be painless. But as a mother, I am truly worried about the future, not just of my state, but the country and the world,” she said.
The Denver meetings are the only ones being held in the West, where the topic of air pollution traditionally sets off a loud debate over environmental values and economic vitality. Three of the top 10 coal-producing states are in the West — Wyoming, Montana and Colorado. Wyoming is No. 1, producing nearly 40 percent of the U.S. total and more than three times as much as West Virginia, the No. 2 state, according to the National Mining Association.
States would have wide latitude in choosing how to meet the administration’s goals. That leaves an uncertain fate for some of the West’s large coal-fired power plants, including Montana’s 2,100-megawatt Colstrip plant.
Montana’s Democratic governor, Steve Bullock, has said at least some of Colstrip’s four units could keep operating if the state can cut emissions in other areas.
Four power plants on tribal land in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah will be dealt with under a separate proposal yet to be announced.
Even without the new rules, coal plants face increasing pressure from regulators to rein in other forms of pollution. Federal officials said Monday that Arizona’s Navajo Generating Station will produce one-third less energy by 2020 and could close by 2044 under a rule aimed at reducing haze-causing nitrogen oxide pollution.
The EPA expects 1,600 people to speak in the four cities and has already received more than 300,000 written comments, which will be accepted until Oct. 16.
EPA technical experts will listen to the comments, and a transcript will go into the EPA record, agency spokeswoman Lisa McClain-Vanderpool said. The EPA plans to release the final rules next year.
The Atlanta, Denver and Washington hearings continue Wednesday. The Pittsburgh hearings will be held Thursday and Friday.
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Online:
Guidelines to submit written comments to the EPA: http://tinyurl.com/qetmzaj
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