Levy Joins Other Scientists on EPA Power Plan Comments.
Environmental Health Professor Jonathan Levy is among 17 scientists who have signed a public comment to the Environmental Protection Agency urging the agency to adopt meaningful power plant standards to cut carbon emissions.
“Standards limiting carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants can also decrease emissions of non-carbon pollutants (co-pollutants) such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and directly emitted particulate matter,” the statement from the scientists says. “As a result, the standards can contribute to improved air quality, public health co-benefits and environmental improvements.”
Levy and colleagues from the Harvard School of Public Health, Syracuse University, and other institutions cited their own recent research indicating that carbon standards that have stringent emissions reduction targets – but that are flexible and include new investments in energy efficiency – offer greater health benefits than policies focused solely on power plant retrofitting. One such report, co-authored by Levy, found that such standards could prevent thousands of premature deaths and hospitalizations, as well as hundreds of heart attacks, in the U.S. every year.
The EPA is taking public comments on the proposed Clean Power Plan and is expected to issue a final rule for carbon emissions from power plants in June 2015.
Submitted by: Lisa Chedekel