1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

As a parent, I am writing today to urge you NOT to roll back climate pollution standards for power plants. We need standards that will hold power plants accountable for their pollution and help to protect our children and the planet from the harms of climate change. Every community in the U.S. is seeing the impacts of climate change, from more severe heat waves, drought, and wildfires to sea level rise to exacerbated air pollution to severe storms and coastal and inland flooding. Fossil fuel power plants are responsible for almost a quarter of the climate pollution generated by the U.S. and while we’ve made progress towards clean energy on our various electrical grids, we cannot roll back protections that took years to put into place. Fossil fuel companies have long since owned many members of Congress, the most extreme of them are in charge now, and look the other way on pollution from fossil fuels. While they profess that it’s all a big hoax, they know perfectly well — as the fossil fuel companies know — that climate change is affecting our health, causing increased incidences of respiratory illnesses, heat-related illnesses, cardiovascular illnesses, infectious diseases, adverse birth outcomes, mental health impacts, and even injury and premature death. These climate-related health impacts can be even more severe in communities of color and economically marginalized communities. We have a moral responsibility to act now to protect the well-being of our children and future generations. The EPA prior to Trump and EPA Administrator Zeldin had finalized protections on climate pollution from power plants that are a meaningful step to protect the health of our communities and reduce the greenhouse gases causing dangerous and costly global warming. I urge you to defend strong climate pollution protections for fossil fuel power plants.