The news from Washington is NOT good: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) keeps falling further and further behind in cutting pollution from dirty power plants nationwide. The result of these regulatory delays is that people get sick – especially people in poor communities of color – and the planet keeps warming. This is unacceptable. The EPA has the authority and the moral responsibility to issue at least nine different rules that will clean up our air and protect our health from coal and gas plants. Missed deadlines and more excuses are no longer permissible. That’s why we’re asking you to come to Washington, D.C. on April 4 to tell Joe Biden’s EPA to “stop blowing smoke!” The EPA is full of remarkably dedicated and skilled staffers inside an agency that has served this nation heroically for 50 years. But read this report to see how the EPA’s current chronic delays are hurting America — like the flagship carbon pollution rule to address global warming. That rule has already been delayed twice. Every delay means US power plants continue business-as-usual operations, contaminating our air and water, and having enormous impacts on our health. The EPA is an essential player in establishing rules and definitions that govern our power sector and influence state and local environmental policies. The EPA’s failure to meet its own self imposed deadlines means the President will not fulfill his campaign promises and could leave recent climate progress vulnerable to a future hostile Administration. We’ve seen this before, the Trump Administration reversed Obama Administration rules because rules were released late. Here are six things the EPA needs to do NOW:
This is undoubtedly an environmental justice concern. Black Americans are more likely to live near coal-fired power plants than their white counterparts. That means that these delays will perpetuate long-standing injustices that President Biden campaigned on addressing. Onward,
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