Ohioans submit 233,242 comments
Columbus, OH: The unprecedented tally of 3 million public comments collected in support of national standards to limit dangerous industrial carbon pollution from new power plants reflects the strong desire of Americans for national leadership to address climate change and its impact on public health. Today, as part of the 3 million comments collected nationally, a broad coalition of Ohio groups supporting this essential clean air safeguard announced they collected more than 233,242 comments here in the state and offered the following statement in support of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Carbon Pollution Standard:
"Three million public comments collected nationally and more than 233,000 comments collected in Ohio in favor of cleaning up dangerous carbon pollution is a remarkable and record-setting show of support for protecting our health from rising temperatures. This outpouring of support from across the nation is a wakeup call for policy makers to heed the public's desire to curb air pollution and climate change.
"We applaud the EPA for taking action against dangerous industrial carbon pollution which poses a wide range of health threats to our families and our communities, as well as to wildlife and our outdoor heritage because of the impacts of climate change. This summer's devastating extreme weather events and deadly record-setting heat waves preview just how damaging and costly rising temperatures will be.
We've had enough of polluters protecting their fat profits at the expense of public health. They may not be ready to clean up, but the American public is. When it comes to addressing climate change and its impact on our health, the American public is clamoring for leadership, now."
Doctors, scientists and other experts agree that carbon pollution threatens our health by fueling climate change. Climate change increases the formation of lung-damaging and asthma-attack inducing smog, which is particularly dangerous for kids and seniors. Climate change also fuels more frequent and more deadly heat waves, droughts, crop damage, floods, infectious diseases and other extreme weather events like those we're seeing across the country this year.
The groups who collected the record 3 million comments supporting the EPA's carbon pollution standard include:
Audubon Ohio
Environment Ohio
National Wildlife Federation
Union of Concerned Scientists
Sierra Club
Environmental Health Watch
Healthcare without Harm
Ohio Interfaith Power and Light
