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In the heart of coal country, EPA gets an earful about Clean Power Plan's fate
Retweeted by David Fahrenthold: https://twitter.com/Fahrenthold
In the heart of coal country, EPA gets an earful about Clean Power Plan’s fate:
Link to tweet
Energy and Environment
In the heart of coal country, EPA gets an earful about Clean Power Plan’s fate
By Brady Dennis November 28 at 4:35 PM
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Coal executive Robert Murray ambled through the packed hearing room inside the gold-domed capital complex here, past reporters and photographers, past environmental activists and energy lobbyists, past more than two dozen of his miners who had filled the seats, wearing their work uniforms and hard hats. ... Like the roughly 300 other people signed up to speak about the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to withdraw the Clean Power Plan — Barack Obama’s signature effort as president to combat climate change by limiting emissions from power plants — Murray got three minutes to make his case.
He used them to rail against the regulation and praise EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt for vowing to scrap it. He called the Clean Power Plan the “linchpin” of the “war on coal.” He argued, as he has for years, that it would have killed more jobs in an industry that has been shedding jobs for years, mostly because of automation and the rise of natural gas. He said it was past time to bury the “illegal, excessive” Obama-era regulation. ... “God bless President Trump and you coal miners. I love you fellas,” he said.
Minutes later, 72-year-old Stanley Sturgill, who mined coal for four decades in the hills of Kentucky, took the seat on the dais where Murray had spoken. He and his wife had risen before dawn and driven several hours from their home in Harlan County. He spoke of his own respiratory problems and how emissions from coal-fired power plants and other pollutants had wreaked havoc on the health of friends, family and neighbors. ... “We need the EPA’s immediate help and not their abandonment,” Sturgill said. “Do I really think that this administration cares what this old, worn coal miner has to say? I don’t know. I doubt it.” ... But Sturgill said as long as he could draw a breath, even a strained one, he intended to push the EPA to put concerns about public health above the wishes of the fossil fuel industry. ... “Our health, environment and global climate are actively being destroyed. And it is clear to me that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and President Trump are accelerating and cheering on the damage,” he told EPA officials. “I have come here today to ask you to stop. For the sake of my grandchildren and yours, I call on you to strengthen, not repeal, the Clean Power Plan.”
The opening hours of a two-day hearing here, with testimony spread across three separate hearing rooms simultaneously, encapsulated the controversy that has long engulfed the plan that Obama finalized in 2015 in an effort to slash greenhouse-gas emissions that scientists agree are fueling the planet’s warming.
....
Brady Dennis is a national reporter for The Washington Post, focusing on the environment and public health issues. Follow @brady_dennis
In the heart of coal country, EPA gets an earful about Clean Power Plan’s fate
By Brady Dennis November 28 at 4:35 PM
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Coal executive Robert Murray ambled through the packed hearing room inside the gold-domed capital complex here, past reporters and photographers, past environmental activists and energy lobbyists, past more than two dozen of his miners who had filled the seats, wearing their work uniforms and hard hats. ... Like the roughly 300 other people signed up to speak about the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to withdraw the Clean Power Plan — Barack Obama’s signature effort as president to combat climate change by limiting emissions from power plants — Murray got three minutes to make his case.
He used them to rail against the regulation and praise EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt for vowing to scrap it. He called the Clean Power Plan the “linchpin” of the “war on coal.” He argued, as he has for years, that it would have killed more jobs in an industry that has been shedding jobs for years, mostly because of automation and the rise of natural gas. He said it was past time to bury the “illegal, excessive” Obama-era regulation. ... “God bless President Trump and you coal miners. I love you fellas,” he said.
Minutes later, 72-year-old Stanley Sturgill, who mined coal for four decades in the hills of Kentucky, took the seat on the dais where Murray had spoken. He and his wife had risen before dawn and driven several hours from their home in Harlan County. He spoke of his own respiratory problems and how emissions from coal-fired power plants and other pollutants had wreaked havoc on the health of friends, family and neighbors. ... “We need the EPA’s immediate help and not their abandonment,” Sturgill said. “Do I really think that this administration cares what this old, worn coal miner has to say? I don’t know. I doubt it.” ... But Sturgill said as long as he could draw a breath, even a strained one, he intended to push the EPA to put concerns about public health above the wishes of the fossil fuel industry. ... “Our health, environment and global climate are actively being destroyed. And it is clear to me that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and President Trump are accelerating and cheering on the damage,” he told EPA officials. “I have come here today to ask you to stop. For the sake of my grandchildren and yours, I call on you to strengthen, not repeal, the Clean Power Plan.”
The opening hours of a two-day hearing here, with testimony spread across three separate hearing rooms simultaneously, encapsulated the controversy that has long engulfed the plan that Obama finalized in 2015 in an effort to slash greenhouse-gas emissions that scientists agree are fueling the planet’s warming.
....
Brady Dennis is a national reporter for The Washington Post, focusing on the environment and public health issues. Follow @brady_dennis
