EPA Takes Critical Step in President's Climate Action Plan

WASHINGTON (September 20, 2013) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today advanced the President’s climate action plan with a revised and common sense proposal to curb carbon pollution from new electricity  plants.

 Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, issued this statement:

 “We have an obligation to protect future generations from climate change. This is a critical step in that direction.

 “The standard makes clear that tomorrow’s power plants won’t be built at the expense of our children’s future. It signals that we’re moving, as a country, to the clean energy solutions we need. And it will help safeguard the most vulnerable among us—our children and elderly people—from smog worsened by climate change.

“Next, we must rein in the unlimited carbon pollution belching out of the nation’s existing electric power plants – those that are driving climate chaos today.

 “We limit the amount of arsenic, mercury and soot from power plants, but not dangerous carbon pollution. That’s not right. It’s not good for our children or our environment. It’s time to set limits, for the first time ever, on the carbon pollution from existing power plants, which account for 40 percent of our national carbon footprint. We know where this pollution is. It’s time to clean it up.”

For more information, please read Frances Beinecke’s blog:http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/fbeinecke/a_climate_breakthrough_epa_rel.html

And NRDC Climate and Clean Air Policy Director David Doniger’s blog:http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/ddoniger/