WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine), a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, spoke on the Senate floor to highlight the detrimental public health, climate and economic impacts of the administration’s proposal to replace the Clean Power Plan (CPP). According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s own analysis, this proposal would increase carbon emissions and toxic air pollution, and would also cause more childhood asthma attacks and premature deaths due to respiratory illness.

Click HERE to watch Senator King’s remarks.

“Let's put it in very stark terms, even by the terms of the new plan that's been announced, the original clean power plan would have reduced carbon emissions by 30%...the new plan by about 1%, and that may be being generous,” said Senator King during his remarks. “We have clean air and water in Maine, but pollution knows no boundaries. That's one of the problems with this plan, is that it essentially leaves up to each state how to regulate the plants within its borders. That's a good idea except the pollution from these plants doesn't stay within those borders. This is a representation of the way air moves in the Northeast part of the United States, and what you can see is…we are literally the end of the country's tailpipe. And therefore anything which weakens pollution controls to our West or South or indeed North is a harm, a direct harm to my people. And that's why I think this plan is so ill-conceived and will not achieve meaningful results and by its own terms we will see more deaths as a result of this plan. They admit that in the data that's been submitted with the plan that deaths will increase. In my state of Maine, we already have higher than average asthma rates. This will only exacerbate that.

“What this plan is doing essentially is extending the life of dirty, polluting plants and shortening the life of real people. I don't think that's the direction we should be moving in. I think this body should correct that. And I believe that this is important to the country, and also to the region and particularly to the state that its represent. The words clean should not be in this plan because that is not what it does. A Clean Power Plan should do what it says it is. It should improve the environment, should improve the air for the people of this country, not make them worse – which is what this plan would do.”

Senator King, a member of the Climate Action Task Force, has supported the Clean Power Plan, calling the initiative an “important step” in 2015. He has consistently fought against environmental risks to Maine’s coast, including strongly opposing the President’s decision to exit the Paris Climate Agreement and pushing back against a Department of Interior proposal that would open up the Gulf of Maine to offshore drilling. In January, Senators Collins and King sent a letter to Secretary Zinke expressing their opposition to the proposal. In their letter, the Senators highlight concerns that even minor spills could cause serious harm to the lobster industry, which contributes an estimated $1.7 billion to the state’s economy, in addition to hurting other fisheries, aquaculture and coastal tourism. In February, Senator King spoke on the Senate floor to underscore the impact that offshore drilling would have on the coastal environment. Senator King also joined his Senate colleagues across New England to introduce the New England Coastal Protection Act, bipartisan legislation that would bar offshore drilling along the region’s coast.

Last month, Senator King highlighted the impacts of climate change in Maine and the need for collective action at all levels of government in a speech on floor of the Senate. He has frequently discussed the environmental and economic dangers associated with climate change and rising water temperatures – including the possibility that the lobster population could be driven northward away from Maine waters, severely harming the state’s economy.

Chart 1: A map of historical ozone transport routes in the Northeast, which Senator King referred during his floor speech.