The Obama administration has recently won a string of
very hard-fought court victories pushing back challenges
to strengthening the Clean Air Act. For Pennsylvanians, this finally means an opportunity to breathe
cleaner air. That is, if our state representatives don’t stand in the way. Every
year, Philadelphia suffers many poor air quality days where we’re
out of compliance with the Clean Air Act. A major contributing factor is pollution wafting over us
coming from coal-fired power plants located in Western PA.
Yesterday, our rep in the PA General Assembly, Cherelle Parker, voted for
House Resolution 815 petitioning the EPA to allow Pennsylvania to adopt “less stringent emissions standards
or a longer compliance schedule” for coal-fired power plants than the new EPA
guidelines call for. If this comes to pass, it will mean many
more years of dirty air for Philadelphia families, with serious health consequences including
more ER visits for children with asthma. To me, House Resolution
815 reads like it was drafted by the Coal Lobby, and I suspect it was.
This is very shortsighted thinking. I will be
contacting Ms. Parker’s office to express my disappointment. If you also find this vote objectionable, please
consider doing the same. You can use this web form to send an email to Representative Parker:
