What's New
On March 12, 2008, the Bush administration's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a flawed new national air quality standard for ozone "smog" pollution, one of the main pollutants emitted by power plants. The announcement seemed to dismiss the requests from dozens of citizens, elected officials, doctors and public health advocates who testified in Philadelphia at an EPA hearing in August, 2007, in support of stronger standards that protect public health. Click here to read our release.
Brief Summary
Coal-fired power plants are Pennsylvania’s largest industrial source of air pollution, fueling global warming, poisoning our waterways with toxic mercury pollution, and causing other serious environmental and public health problems. In fact, a 2004 report found that air pollution from power plants alone causes over 1,800 premature deaths in Pennsylvania each year. And Pennsylvania’s coal-fired power plants are a big reason why Pennsylvania creates more global warming pollution than every state besides Texas and California.
Thankfully, the technology exists to drastically reduce the amount of air pollution being produced by Pennsylvania’s coal-fired power plants. But instead of requiring our power plants to implement these modern technologies to protect our environment and public health, industry lobbyists are pressuring our elected officials in Harrisburg and Washington, DC to weaken the Clean Air Act and other laws so power plants can continue to pollute at current levels. In response, PennEnvironment is working to make sure that the public’s voice is heard on this issue so that we can cut pollution levels from Pennsylvania’s coal-fired power plants.
