Anyone and everyone should consider testifying. You can represent yourself, an organization, your faith community, your family, or any group for which you speak.
What would you say in your testimony?
Start by introducing yourself and saying where you live. State the name of the organization you represent and what they do, if you're speaking on their behalf. State that you are fully supportive of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) proposed carbon pollution standard, and that you want it to be implemented promptly and without being weakened in any way.Continue by offering a sentence or two about why you care about action on climate change. For example, "My cousins lost their home on the Jersey shore to Hurricane Sandy, and unchecked climate change will only bring us more and more superstorms." Or perhaps, "My children (or grandchildren) deserve as safe and stable a future as we can possible leave them, and climate change works against that." You get the picture.
And if you're as frustrated as we are with the Corbett administration's wrong-headed approach to climate change, help yourself to our take on this -- see below.
Next, it would be helpful to list some facts and figures about climate change. See below for a bunch of those that you can use. Finish up by reiterating your support for the proposed standard, and thanking the Commonwealth for the opportunity to be heard.
You have up to 15 minutes to speak, but feel no compunction to use the allotted time. A short and punchy 500 words would be terrific. Our advice in a nutshell? Speak to the issues that resonate most deeply with you.
Suggestions for inclusion in your testimony
Concerns that Commonwealth is not taking climate change seriously
- PennFuture is greatly concerned that neither the Governor nor the Commonwealth are seriously engaging around the threats of climate change, nor is the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) doing its job to develop a viable plan to meet the EPA's target.
- Governor Corbett has publicly stated that he believes there is still significant debate in the scientific community about the existence and risks of human-made climate change.
- The Governor has appointed various climate deniers or skeptics to high-level energy and environment positions, such as his first Secretary of DEP and the Governor’s Energy Executive.
- Governor Corbett has signed a letter to President Obama asking him to rescind EPA’s carbon rule, and a second letter questioning the legality of the rule. He has expressed concerns over the economic impacts of the rule.
- The DEP has issued one white paper for carbon rule compliance that it admits would not be accepted by EPA (see testimony of DEP Deputy Secretary Vince Brisini at 14:20 of the video). The substance of the white paper also seems consistent with Gov. Corbett’s legal arguments against the rule, requesting major pollution control exemptions for dirty coal plants.
- Governor Corbett’s actions seem more consistent with climate denial then with responsible leadership that aims to balance public health with economic realities.
- We are concerned that the DEP and Gov. Corbett do not believe that cost-effective energy efficiency at homes and businesses should play a role in carbon rule compliance. The Pa. Public Utility Commission found that for every $1 spent on efficiency in Pennsylvania, ratepayers receive $3 back in benefits.
- PJM, the operator of the electricity grid that serves Pennsylvania, found that the grid can increase renewable energy to twenty-to-thirty percent of electricity supply while reducing wholesale electricity prices by $9-to-$20 billion, all while maintaining a reliable grid. However, we are troubled that the Governor and DEP do not believe renewable energy has a role to play in carbon rule compliance.
- We are concerned that the DEP will present comments to EPA that do not represent a good faith effort to comply with the proposed rule, will undervalue the need to reduce carbon pollution, and will discount our public health and the economic benefits of addressing climate change.
Some climate change facts, figures, and arguments
- Carbon pollution causes climate change, resulting in more frequent and increasingly violent extreme weather events, drought, sea level rise and other stressors that devastate communities, threaten public health, and destroy and degrade wildlife habitat.
- Globally, we’ve now had 354 consecutive months above the long-term average, meaning a 29-year-old has never lived through a “cooler than normal” month.
- Wildfires, floods and extreme weather events like heat waves, droughts and heavy rainfall are becoming more frequent and more severe. These changes are happening in the evolutionary blink of an eye. This hurts our public health, our economy, and our natural environment.
- Pennsylvania creates more heat-trapping emissions than all but two other states, Texas and California, each of which have much larger populations.
- Pennsylvania creates nearly one percent of the world's total heat-trapping emissions, far disproportionate to our population.
- The EPA is using its authority, granted by a bipartisan vote of Congress, signed by a Republican president [Nixon], and confirmed by a conservative-leaning Supreme Court [the Roberts Court], to set standards for industrial carbon pollution from power plants, which threatens public health.
- Setting reasonable carbon pollution standards for power plants will cut the primary driver of climate change, which fuels extreme weather that threatens communities and public health with increasing costs and worsening impacts.
- Big polluters want to continue to dump unlimited amounts of carbon pollution into the air for free instead of adopting reasonable carbon pollution safeguards that protect public health by slowing climate change. That’s wrong.
The Public Health Impacts
- From the American Lung Association:"Climate change and ozone scientists warn that the buildup of greenhouse gases and the climate changes caused by this will create conditions, including warmer temperatures, which will increase the risk of unhealthful ambient [ground level] ozone levels...Even with the steps that are in place to reduce ozone, evidence warns that changes in climate will likely increase future ozone levels in large parts of the U.S. To protect human health, the nation needs strong measures to reduce climate change and ozone."
- From the 2014 National Climate Assessment: "Climate change, as well as increased CO2 by itself, can contribute to increased production of plant-based allergens...Higher pollen concentrations and longer pollen seasons can increase allergic sensitizations and asthma episodes and diminish productive work and school days. Simultaneous exposure to toxic air pollutants can worsen allergic responses. Even rainfall and rising temperatures can foster indoor air quality problems, including the growth of indoor fungi and molds, with increases in respiratory and asthma-related conditions."
- Also from the 2014 National Climate Assessment: "Extreme heat events are the leading weather-related cause of death in the U.S. Many cities, including Philadelphia, have suffered dramatic spikes in death rates during heat waves...Heat waves are also associated with increased hospital admissions for cardiovascular, kidney, and respiratory disorders."
- Clean Air Task Force provides terrific information at the level of counties and power plants for every state, including Pennsylvania. Click here and then click on Pennsylvania on the map.
The Economic Impacts
- Between 1970 and 2006, U.S. GDP grew by 195 percent, even though we had Environmental Protection Agency and Clean Air Act regulations that significantly cut carbon monoxide, smog pollution, acid rain, and toxic pollutants such as lead.
- Setting limits on the carbon pollution causing climate change will spur investment and innovation in energy efficiency and clean energy technologies. The real economic risk is inaction. From 2011 to 2013 alone, damages from extreme weather events have exceeded $200 billion. Imagine how huge a cleanup bill we’d be handing our children and grandchildren if we fail to act now.
See you in Harrisburg on September 25? Hope so.
PennFuture will be hosting a climate rally in the Capitol Rotunda at 10 a.m. on September 25. Join us!
Thanks so much for your interest in this critical issue. Hope to see you at the listening session.
Joy Bergey is federal policy director for PennFuture and is based in Philadelphia. She tweets @joybergey. You can meet her on September 25 in Harrisburg, where she'll be testifying.
