Letter: Why fight for plan that won’t impact climate change?

“Washington, Oregon governors vow to fight Trump on EPA cuts” (TCH, March 27), and promise to fight an anticipated Trump executive order that “unravels the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, an environmental regulation that restricts greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants.”

Why fight for the Clean Power Plan? Even EPA admits the plan would result in virtually no global temperature reduction (0.01 to 0.02 degrees Celsius by 2100, a barely measurable reduction). When pressed about this at a Congressional hearing, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy did not disagree with the 0.01 degree estimate, and instead responded, “The value of this rule is not measured in that way. It is measured in showing strong domestic action which can actually trigger global action ...” (see July 9, 2015 at bit.ly/mccarthy-hearing, starting 19:30 minutes in).

So we will “fight” for a plan whose primary impact on climate change is to set a good example for the world, a plan that will cause a major disruption of the U.S. electrical system, including decimation of the coal industry, premature decommissioning of coal-fired power plants and replacement with costly solar and wind technology, and higher electricity costs. Only in political la-la land could this make sense.

This story was originally published April 9, 2017 at 4:48 AM with the headline "Letter: Why fight for plan that won’t impact climate change?."