1. United States
2. Mich.
3. Letter

I’m writing as a constituent in Marquette County to ask you to oppose the EPA’s proposed rollback of power plant pollution standards. These protections are essential for safeguarding our air, our public health, and the future of northern Michigan communities like ours. Although Marquette’s Presque Isle coal plant shut down in 2019, the environmental effects remain. Mercury and fine particulate matter still linger in our fish, water, and air. In 2024, a new PM2.5 air monitor was installed in Marquette County to help track harmful particles. This matters to us, especially as wildfire smoke becomes a seasonal concern across the Upper Peninsula. This issue is personal to me. My daughter has reactive airways and struggles with poor air quality. During recent Canadian wildfires, many local residents reported hoarseness, coughing, and difficulty breathing. Loosening clean air rules now would be like smoking a cigarette when the air is already full of smoke. The EPA’s own review last year estimated that the now-targeted standards would prevent thousands of premature deaths and yield $390 billion in health and climate benefits. Weakening those standards goes against the agency’s own science and threatens to shift the burden to families, not polluters. I hope you’ll stand up for the health of our region. Please urge the EPA to keep strong limits on greenhouse gases and air toxics. U.P. families deserve clean air and science-driven policy, not regulatory rollbacks that serve industry over people.