美国.S. 环境保护署(EPA) today issued four final rules regulating climate- and health-harming pollutants 来自化石燃料发电厂, 包括汞, 空气有毒物质, and wastewater discharge from coal-fired power plants; storage of 煤灰; and the release of carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants and new gas-fired power plants. These measures will deliver critical public health protections for communities that have long suffered from the burning of fossil fuels, 同时提供二氧化碳排放量的大幅减少, 忧思617888九五至尊娱乐家联盟(UCS).
以下是Chitra Kumar的声明, 他是加州大学洛杉矶分校617888九五至尊娱乐与能源项目的总经理, 关于包电厂规则.
“The suite of power plant rules announced by EPA Administrator Regan represents a significant step forward in the fight for ambitious climate action and environmental justice. 在一起, these rules help address a long-standing legacy of public health and environmental harms stemming from coal-fired power plants that scientific studies show have disproportionately hurt communities of color and low-income communities. 为新建的燃气发电厂设定碳排放标准, Administrator Regan has also rightly recognized the growing climate threat posed by a shift to fossil gas, 这有助于避免新一轮的污染危害.
“通过严格的实施和执法, these safeguards can provide essential protections for communities living in the vicinity of fossil fuel power plants, 靠近煤灰处理场, 或者沿着被煤电厂有毒废物污染的水道. 随着各州和公用事业公司开始实施这些规则, they must prioritize proactive community engagement—including with historically overburdened populations, as well as affected fossil fuel workers and communities—to ensure outcomes reflect the needs of those most directly impacted.
“最重要的是，燃煤发电会造成严重污染, 越来越多的不经济的, and must be rapidly phased out to protect public health and address the climate crisis—and the solution cannot be committing to even more fossil gas. 我们的国家就能越快地过渡到清洁的可再生能源, 对人类和地球就越好.”
以下是朱莉·麦克纳马拉的声明, a senior analyst and deputy policy director of the 617888九五至尊娱乐 and 能源 Program at UCS, 关于发电厂的碳排放标准.
“It’s untenable that coal-fired power plants have gone so long without carbon limits despite their staggering climate toll, and that new gas-fired power plants keep getting built without carbon accountability. 环保署对燃煤电厂的新碳标准, coupled with parallel rulemakings cracking down on mercury and 空气有毒物质, 煤灰, 以及有毒电厂废水的排放, rightly force the hand of all coal plants that remain: clean up or make an exit plan. 此外, EPA’s carbon standards for new gas-fired power plants are a critical check on the profoundly shortsighted buildout of ever more fossil fuel infrastructure.
“Delivering the rapid and robust clean energy transition the science demands requires attending to numerous policymaking levers and dials, but none are more fundamental than EPA doing its job in holding fossil-fuel-fired power plants to account for their pollution harms—and in so doing, leveling the playing field for states and utilities to pursue truly clean energy solutions instead.
“For as critical as these carbon rules are, the agency’s job is not yet done. EPA must tackle carbon emissions from existing gas-fired power plants—soon to be the largest source of power sector carbon emissions—and it must look beyond carbon to reckon with the full suite of health-harming pollution these plants disproportionately and inequitably force on the communities that surround them. 当所有化石燃料发电厂的沉重成本被计算出来时, it’s unequivocally clear that clean energy presents the just and necessary path ahead.”