The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is moving to weaken regulations on coal-fired power plants, which are the most significant mercury polluters.
The EPA itself projects that its current rule—the 2012 Mercury and Air Toxics (MATS) standards—prevents more than 11,000 premature deaths and 130,000 asthma attacks each year. A bipartisan group of senators have opposed this change. They urged the EPA to keep the lifesaving standards in place in a letter to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler.
Emily Wirzba, FCNL’s Legislative Representative for Sustainable Energy and Environment, joined more than 50 faith and climate activists in sending a letter to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler on April 17, opposing this dangerous action.
Administrator Andrew Wheeler
Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20460
Dear Administrator Wheeler,
As faith leaders from a broad spectrum of religious traditions, we write to urge you to not weaken the Environmental Protection Agency’s Mercury and Air Toxic Standards. Faith traditions teach us the importance not only of protecting God’s creation from environmental hazards like mercury pollution, but also urge us to care for vulnerable populations.
Mercury pollution disproportionately impacts people of color and lower income families and has devastating impacts on children and pregnant women including damage to developing lungs, kidneys, heart and brain. Because of mercury pollution’s impact to human health and especially vulnerable populations, we are compelled to speak out against any weakening of the mercury pollution standards.
The current standards have been instrumental in reducing dangerous mercury and other toxic air pollutants released from coal and oil burning power plants. As projected by your own agency, the mercury standards avoid up to 11,000 premature deaths, 5,000 heart attacks and 130,000 asthma attacks each year.
Mercury pollution standards should not discount human health or limit co-benefits in the cost-benefit analysis. We support the 2003 guidelines issued by the George W. Bush Administration that work to protect human health. The standards should put the wellbeing of vulnerable communities and all of God’s creation at the forefront.
We believe that weakening the mercury standards does not fulfill EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment and will not protect the common good. The current Mercury and Air Toxic Standards help us care for God’s creation and should not be weakened.
Sincerely,
Rev. Jessica Abell
Founding Pastor
Living Waters Community Church of Denver
Jeffrey S. Allen
West Virginia Council of Churches
Charleston, WV
Rabbi Katy Z. Allen
Jewish Climate Action Network Massachusetts
Ma’yan Tikvah
Shantha Ready Alonso
Executive Director
Creation Justice Ministries
Peter Bakken
Coordinator
Wisconsin Interfaith Power & Light
Rebecca Blachly, M.Div.
Director of Government Relations
The Episcopal Church
Rev. Anna Blaedel
United Methodist Elder
Director, Wesley Center at the University of Iowa
Sr. Joan Brown OSF
Executive Director
New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light
Cassandra Carmichael
Executive Director
National Religious Partnership for the Environment
Patrick Carolan
Executive Director
Franciscan Action Network
Rev. Dr. Christopher Carter
United Methodist Elder and Assistant Professor of Theology
University of San Diego
Marianne Comfort
Sisters of Mercy of the Americas’
Institute Justice Team
Rev. Dr. Jennifer Copeland
Executive Director, NC Council of Churches
United Methodist Clergy
Carol Devine
Green Chalice
Disciples Home Mission
Rev. Dr. Timothy Eberhart
Assistant Professor of Theology and Ecology
Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary
Rabbi Sam Feinsmith
Skokie Valley Agudath Jacob Synagogue
Skokie, IL
Dr. Mirele B. Goldsmith
Jewish Climate Action Network-DC
Rabbi Lisa Grant
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion
Rev. Dr. H. William Gregory
United Church of Christ retired pastor
Yarmouth, Maine
Rabbi Steve Gutow
Visiting Scholar at NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and Immediate past chair of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment
Rev. Susan Hendershot
President
Regeneration Project
Interfaith Power & Light
Glenda Hill
United Methodist
Flagstaff, Arizona
Rev. Dr. Douglas B. Hunt
Board Member
Unitarian Universalist Ministry for Earth
Rev. Mark David Johnson, MDiv, STM
Pastor, Emanuel Lutheran Church, New Brunswick NJ
Rev. Dr. Dong Hyeon Jeong, PhD
United Methodist Church
Southwest Philippine Annual Conference
Dr. Laurel Kearns
Associate Professor
Drew University
Rev. Richard Killmer
Retired Presbyterian minister
Yarmouth, Maine
Sarah Withrow King
co-director
CreatureKind
Sarah King
Former chair
Arizona Faith Network
Avery Davis Lamb
Interfaith Power & Light
Washington, DC
Rev. Ken Brooker Langston
Disciples Center for Public Witness
Rev. Greg Davison Laszakovits
Pastor
Elizabethtown Church of the Brethren
Dr. Hyo-Dong Lee
Associate Professor
Drew University Theological School
Scott Lewis
Higher Ground Initiative
Temple Solel, Hollywood, FL
The Rev. Dr. Russell L. Meyer
Executive Director
Florida Council of Churches
Rev. Abby Mohaupt
Moderator
Fossil Free Presbyterian Church USA
Mary Elizabeth Moore
Dean and Professor of Theology and Education Boston University School of Theology
Beth Norcross
Executive Director
The Center for Spirituality in Nature
Rev. Kerri Parker
Executive Director
Wisconsin Council of Churches
Rev. Jenny Phillips
Creation Care Program Manager
General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church
Rev. David Radcliff
Executive Director
New Community Project
Bonny Rodden
President
Maine Council of Churches
Terra Schwerin Rowe, PhD
Assistant Professor
Philosophy and Religion Department
University of North Texas
Nigel S. Savage
President & CEO
Hazon
Rev. Peter Sawtell
Executive Director
Eco-Justice Ministries, Denver, Colorado
Rev. Katie Sexton
Executive Director
Arizona Faith Network
Ann Scholz, SSND, PhD
Associate Director for Social Mission
Leadership Conference of Women Religious
David K. Shumate
District Executive Minister
Virlina District Board - Church of the Brethren, Inc.
Rev. Sandy Sorenson
Director, Washington Office
United Church of Christ
Rabbi Daniel Swartz
Executive Director
Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life
Pennsylvania
Mark Terwilliger
Pastor, Countryside Community Church, a United Methodist Fellowship Clarks Summit, PA
Susannah Tuttle
Director, Interfaith Power and Light
North Carolina Council of Churches
Emily Wirzba
Legislative Representative, Sustainable Energy & Environment
Friends Committee on National Legislation
Melody Zhang
Sojourners
Rochester Hills, Michigan