June 19, 2019, Salt Lake City, UT – Today, the federal Environmental Protection Agency submitted the Affordable Clean Energy rule (ACE) as a replacement for the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. The Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL Utah) believes that ACE is a huge step backwards for the United States and our fight against climate change.
The Clean Power Plan imposed the first federal limits on carbon pollution from existing power plants and the Trump administration’s own analysis on that plan found that it could prevent as many as 4,500 premature deaths each year by 2030, which was even more than previous estimates. By rolling back the Clean Power Plan and replacing it with ACE, the EPA and administration are prioritizing corporate polluters over the health and safety of the American people.
Further, ACE upends the market-driven transition to cleaner, renewable energy generation resources which now employs more people than the coal industry. Under ACE, dirty power plants, many of which have become uneconomic, would be put on life support to benefit the few, while hurting the health and global sustainability of the rest of us.
In order to truly reshape our future in the era of climate change and protect our health from its effects, the Clean Power Plan should be strengthened instead of replaced by a plan that will take us in the wrong direction when there is so little time to waste.
About HEAL Utah: The Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL Utah) has been an environmental advocacy organization, watchdog, and strategic influencer in Utah since 1999. By empowering grassroots advocates, using science-based solutions, and developing common-sense policy, HEAL has a track record of tackling some of the biggest threats to Utah’s environment and public health — and succeeding. The organization focuses on clean air, energy and climate, and radioactive waste. HEAL uses well-researched legislative, regulatory, and individual responsibility approaches to create tangible change, and then utilizes grassroots action to make it happen.
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