America is stronger when the people closest to the consequences have real power over the decisions that affect their lives, when we invest in science and innovation, build clean energy that families own and benefit from, and refuse to let the conditions of people’s lives be decided somewhere far away.
Communities deserve a say in the decisions that shape their lives, their health, the air their children breathe, whether they can build a life and a future in the places they call home. The EPA’s decision to repeal federal standards that would have required many coal and gas power plants to significantly reduce their climate pollution in the years ahead takes that say away. It’s a decision made far from the people who will live with its consequences and made without them. Those consequences are not abstract. It is a decision with harmful consequences for us all.
At a moment when scientists continue to warn that the window to avoid the worst effects of climate change is rapidly closing, moving backward on pollution safeguards puts lives, health, and livelihoods at greater risk.
And the people who bear the greatest burden are too often those with the fewest resources to refuse it: low-income communities, rural communities, and communities of color, where industrial development has long been concentrated and where residents have had the least voice in the decisions that affect their lives while bearing a disproportionate share of the pollution.
Midwesterners don’t have to look far to see what’s at stake. From record flooding in Indiana, Minnesota, and Iowa to dangerous heat waves and stronger storms across the region, communities once thought insulated from climate impacts are feeling them firsthand. And as we’ve seen in Michigan, keeping dirty power plants running is more expensive, too—leaving everyday Midwesterners on the hook for a bill they never agreed to.
Communities should have the power to shape the energy systems they depend on, so those systems work better for people than they do today, are built to last, and can weather whatever comes next.
Communities should have the power to shape the energy systems they depend on, so those systems work better for people than they do today, are built to last, and can weather whatever comes next. That is not a trade-off between reliable energy and healthy communities. The technologies to power our future while cutting pollution already exist. We know how to lower costs for families, grow local economies, create good jobs, and protect people’s health and our planet at the same time.
America is stronger when the people closest to the consequences have real power over the decisions that affect their lives, when we invest in science and innovation, build clean energy that families own and benefit from, and refuse to let the conditions of people’s lives be decided somewhere far away. These are proven solutions that deliver for real families and communities. We should not walk away from them when people need them most.
