Photo by Sierra Club staff
On Valentine’s Day, I testified before the Environmental Protection Agency at a hearing regarding the Trump administration and EPA acting director Andrew Wheeler’s plans to roll back climate pollution standards. Here is my testimony about why we must take strong climate action to protect public health and our environment:
My name is Mary Anne Hitt, and I’m Senior Director of Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign. I’m here on behalf of our over three million members and supporters to register my firm and unequivocal opposition to EPA’s proposed rollback of the carbon pollution standards for new power plants.
I’m also here to deliver hundreds of valentines to you from people across America who care desperately about the fate of our climate and the decision you’re faced with here today, and who join me in opposing this proposal. When we found out that this hearing was going to be on Valentine’s Day, it felt like a perfect opportunity to invite Americans to share their love of this planet, their families, their homes, and everything threatened by the climate crisis. So we offered to hand-deliver their valentines to you at this hearing. The response has been overwhelming.
Hundreds of beautiful, lovingly crafted handmade valentines have been pouring in from all over the country, from classrooms, from moms and dads and kids, from grandparents. They’ve come in from dozens of states like Alabama, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, West Virginia where I live. I want to share a couple with you now, and I request that each be registered as an individual comment in the official docket.
One person spent $25 dollars to overnight an envelope to us – that’s how important it was, to have their voice in the room today. When I opened the envelope, there were two construction paper hearts in it, from a mom and her 3-year-old. The mom said she lays awake at night, scared worried about the dangerous world her child will grow up in, because of the climate crisis.
I hope you’ll put these valentines in the docket, but I also hope you’ll read them. Take them into a conference room, send an email around the office, and let your colleagues know how much the American people care about the work you’re doing.
Perhaps some of you here today were actually part of writing the original carbon standards for new power plants during the Obama years, which the Trump Administration is now trying to roll back. And if that’s the case, thank you. I’m sure each one of you is painfully aware of the fact that climate change has landed on our doorsteps, that we only have a decade to turn the corner on emissions, and that setting carbon standards for new power plants is essential. It should be nonnegotiable. And yet this Administration is trying to erase them.
I want you to know that Americans love the EPA, they love our planet, and they are counting on you to do the right thing and keep these common sense standards in place. We’ve brought their voices into the room, and I think you’ll be moved by what they have to say. Please – don’t move forward with these rollbacks. These kids, these families, and families across the nation are counting on you.