EPA says cutting coal use might save lives | Online Athens

The EPA is holding hearings in Atlanta and three other cities this week on its plan for reducing power plants’ carbon emissions.

Those in favor of the changes say that as coal plants shut down or are replaced with cleaner natural gas, there will be fewer conventional pollutants in the air. Specifically, that means fewer lung-damaging particulates and less ground-level ozone, or smog.

The EPA expects that the resulting cleaner air will mean fewer asthma attacks and hospitalizations, and 2,700 to 6,600 fewer premature deaths per year by 2030.

Opponents of the EPA plan have stressed the potential negative consequences of the proposed rules on the economy, and they were vocal about it this week.

“These rules if they are adopted, we believe, they will kill thousands of jobs and they will raise electricity bills in Georgia,” Joel Foster with Americans for Prosperity Georgia told Georgia Public Broadcasting.

State Rep. Chuck Martin, R-Alpharetta, said at the Atlanta EPA hearing Tuesday that “if coal comes off the trains, all the other products that ride on the trains are going to get more expensive in your department store, in your grocery store. If you don’t believe that that will have a negative impact on the economy, then we just differ.”

via EPA says cutting coal use might save lives | Online Athens.