October 2018
HOI members were in Chicago on October 1st for the only public hearing on the Trump EPA replacement for the federal Clean Power Plan. This plan means significant pollution increases for Central Illinois. It will greatly weaken regulations that will enable the five coal-fired plants in our area to increase operations and pollution without restraint. A noon rally at the Federal Building plaza was lead by Rev. Tony Pierce, Heaven’s View Christian Fellowship, Peoria, who is president of Illinois People’s Action. He gave stirring comments on the harm minorities and the poor face from pollution and economic injustice. Speakers included representatives from numerous minority and economic justice groups. Girl Scouts from Springfield spoke on why they are concerned about climate change and how this plan will not curtail CO2 levels in time to stop an irreversible level.
Reviews of the Trump EPA plan include the following comment from Richard L. Revesz, the Lawrence King Professor of Law and Dean Emeritus at New York University School of Law, where he directs the Institute for Policy Integrity. “This is very bad for the environment,” Revesz says. “What the EPA has done will have enormously negative consequences, not just for greenhouse gas emissions but also for emissions of conventional pollutants. It will significantly increase concentrations of particulate matter and ozone and lead to thousands of additional deaths and large numbers of hospitalizations and adverse health impacts such as additional cases of asthma.”
The Trump EPA plan is called ACE, the Affordable Clean Energy plan. The ACE rule is designed to be most affordable for coal-fired power plants and continue support for coal. The rule defines the “best system of emission reduction” (BSER) for GHG emissions from existing power plants as on-site, heat-rate efficiency improvements. It also contains major changes for the EPA NSR (New Source Review). For decades, the NSR required major construction or annual emission changes at coal plants to trigger the long-standing NSR provision in the Clean Air Act which has the obligation for modified plants to improve their pollution controls. Loss of the NSR is a huge problem for clean air as it will mean coal plants can make construction changes to increase capacity without dealing with additional pollution reviews that would have been required under NSR.
The Trump EPA plan was introduced August 21, 2018. Contrast this to the years of reports, testimony, public hearings across the country, and millions of comments in support of the Obama EPA Clean Power Plan.
Read the Sierra Club overview.
Read what the Trump EPA says about the ACE plan.
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