Overwhelming Number Turn Out to Support Clean Power Plan at Coal Country Hearing
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA‘s) only public hearing on the proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan (CPP) featured many more people speaking in favor of the Obama-era effort to slash emissions from power plants.
Even though EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt purposely held the meeting in Charleston “in the heart of coal country,” West Virginia to allow more coal stakeholders to testify in person, the vast majority of the 250 speakers at the two-day meeting at the West Virginia Capitol Complex actually approve of the CPP, VICE News reported. Only 30 or so speakers voiced their support for the repeal.
Representatives from environmental and social justice groups such as the NAACP naturally spoke in favor of the plan, which would avert dangerous climate change and save billions of dollars due to the public health benefits of cutting polluting emissions.
But perhaps to the surprise of CPP opponents, many residents of West Virginia and even a former coal miner also spoke of how they wanted to save the Obama initiative.
Cynthia Ellis of Putnam County, West Virginia—who said she contracted asthma due to exposure from coal plant emissions—testified about how her 10-year-old extended family member, Emma, “coached me on how to use my inhaler,” VICE reported.
Stanley Sturgill, 72, a retired coal miner diagnosed with black lung and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease due to years of working in the field, pleaded to the EPA panel: “We’re still dying—we’re still literally dying—for you to help us.”
“Just how many people must pay the supreme price of death for a few rich, greedy people to bank a few dollars?” Sturgill continued, as…
