State officials, environmentalists and many residents worry repealing a federal plan that aims to reduce pollution from power plants could have drastic health and environmental consequences for the First State.
In October, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed repealing the Clean Power Plan, but they did not schedule a public hearing in or near Delaware. State officials held one of their own on Monday at Wilmington’s Chase Center.
About a hundred residents, environmentalists and health advocates came to listen to and share thoughts with Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control and state officials on how a nationwide repeal of the Clean Power Plan could affect the First State.
Citing the 2017 US National Climate Assessment report, Bruce Ho with National Resources Defense Council said the report concludes human activity is the primary cause of global warming.
“And yet the EPA proposes to repeal the Clean Power Plan – one of the most significant steps our country has proposed to slow this dangerous warming,” Ho said. “The question is why? It cannot be because of the science.”
Wilmington resident and environmental educator Isaac Jensen told Delaware Public Media repealing the plan would be a step backward for Delaware and the nation.
“It’s really problematic because it’s showing that we don’t have a commitment to the next generation and to our planet to see that we actually are willing to take the steps needed to preserve a healthy environment,” Jensen said.
Delaware has the lowest lying elevation in the country and the Delaware Geological Survey and Delaware Coastal Programs released a report in November 2017 proposing three scenarios of sea level rise by 2100: .5 meters, 1 meter and 1.5 meters.
The Clean Power Plan was established in 2015. It allows individual states the opportunity to target how they can best reduce pollution themselves. Nationwide, the plan is expected to cut carbon emissions from power plants 32 percent by 2030.
If the country were stripped of the Clean Power Plan, Delaware is still one of nine states involved in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative – an effort to reduce carbon emissions by 30 more percent by 2030.
But some nearby states aren’t part of that coalition. Between July to November 2016, DNREC filed four petitions with the EPA, urging they put mitigations in place for power plants from Pennsylvania and West Virginia, with the claim that power plant pollution from upwind states plays a huge role in air pollution in Delaware.
DNREC Secretary Shawn Garvin said the state wants other states to do their part, and some of that will come from leadership at the federal level.
“We can control what happens in our borders but we can’t control what happens in other states that are impacting us, and that can be in both air and in water,” Garvin said. “We really need the federal government and the EPA to take leadership on that."
Delawareans can submit comments to the EPA now through Jan. 16, 2018.
