July 11, 2012 
Beating any prior record for public comments on a federal regulation, 2.1 million Americans submitted comments to support the EPA’s new carbon pollution standards. After the official collection of comments closed, the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the EPA regulations. This shows that the American public, despite heavy opposition from deep-pocketed and politically-allied polluters such as the American Petroleum Institute, are motivated and inspired to reduce carbon pollution, and have the will to make their voices heard and represented.
EPA’s Carbon Pollution Rule Gets Largest Number Of Public Comments For Any Federal Rule
Cross-post from Climate Progress
by Susannah Marshall
2.1 Million comments are delivered to EPA Assistant Administrator for Air Gina McCarthy. Source: Josh Lopez
It turns out a lot of people support the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulation of carbon dioxide from power plants. Recently, 2.1 million comments were submitted to the EPA in support of its proposed Carbon Pollution Standard for new power plants. The 2.1 million comments collected over the past ten weeks have more than doubled the previous record for comments to EPA. The groups collecting the comments say it’s the largest number submitted for any federal regulation in U.S. history.
This proposed regulation would reduce carbon pollution from new power plants by 123 billion pounds annually – roughly equal to the amount of pollution from 11 million cars.
Coal-fired power plants are the single largest emitters of carbon dioxide, spewing 2 billion tons of global warming pollution into our air each year — helping to accelerate heat waves, droughts, floods, and leading to more asthma attacks, heat induced mortality, and other serious ailments.
Throughout June, wildfires, floods, record-setting high temperatures and other extreme weather events were in full force, acting as a painful reminder that it’s time to seriously address carbon pollution.
A broad coalition of clean air organizations including the Center for American Progress Action Fund issued this statement last week, commending the incredible response to the new standards:
“[O]ur expectations have been exceeded by the unprecedented support demonstrated by the more than 2 million comments from Americans who support EPA’s historic standard to curb dangerous industrial carbon pollution from new power plants while urging EPA to move forward with a strong standard for existing power plants. The message is clear: Americans want cleaner air and less industrial carbon pollution and they want EPA to protect their kids, their families and their communities from the dangerous effects of climate change.”
EPA stated that the proposed carbon pollution standard is “in line with current industry investment patterns,” and therefore “is not expected to have notable costs and is not projected to impact electricity prices or reliability.”
Read the full article here
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