Delaware Holds Its Own Public Meeting on Pruitt’s Proposed Clean Power Plan Rollback

(Wilmington, DE – January 8, 2018) EDF joined concerned citizens from across Delaware today as the state held a public meeting about the Clean Power Plan – the country’s only nationwide limit on carbon pollution from existing power plants.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt has proposed to repeal the Clean Power Plan and leave unaddressed one of our nation’s largest sources of climate destabilizing pollution.

The Clean Air Act mandates that EPA give concerned Americans an opportunity to verbally present their views to EPA officials before deciding about a repeal. Multiple cities and states around the country offered to host public hearings on the issue so their citizens could weigh – but the agency has held only one public hearing about the proposed repeal so far.

Now, in the absence of official EPA public hearings, some states are holding their own public meetings and listening sessions. John Bullock represented EDF at today’s meeting in Wilmington, testifying that:

“Repealing the Clean Power Plan would be deeply harmful to the health and well-being of communities across the country. EPA has a legal and moral responsibility to protect Americans from air pollution that destabilizes our climate and damages our health.”

You can read Bullock’s full testimony here.

New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland have also planned public meetings about the proposed Clean Power Plan repeal for later this week. Representatives for EDF are planning to attend those meetings too.

EPA has promised to hold three more listening sessions in San Francisco, Kansas City, and Gillette, Wyoming. However dates for those hearings have not been announced, and the public comment period for the proposal to repeal the Clean Power Plan is scheduled to end in a week – on Tuesday, January 16.

The Clean Power Plan is the single biggest step America has ever taken to address the growing threat of climate change. EPA’s own analysis shows the Clean Power Plan would prevent as many as 4,500 deaths from air pollution and 90,000 childhood asthma attacks each year. It would also support America’s booming clean energy sector – a rapidly growing, $200 billion sector employing more than three million people.