NRDC Expert: President’s Climate Plan Can Set U.S. on “Right Track To Cut Dangerous Pollution That Threatens Our Health And Well-Being”

WASHINGTON (January 16, 2014) –  President Obama’s climate action plan deserves the nation’s support because it will reduce dangerous carbon pollution and other heat-trapping emissions driving climate change, promote clean energy and make communities more resilient, according to Natural Resources Defense Council climate expert Daniel Lashof.

Lashof, who heads NRDC’s Climate and Clean Air Program, is testifying today before a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on the president’s climate action plan unveiled last summer.

In his testimony, Lashof says the nation has a responsibility to act to protect future generations from climate chaos. The president’s plan, which aims to cut carbon pollution by power plants, curb other harmful emissions and ramp up vehicle fuel efficiency standards, will help meet that obligation.

“Provided that Congress does not prevent EPA and other agencies from doing their jobs, and provided that those agencies are ambitious in implementing the President’s Climate Action Plan,” Lashof says in his testimony, “we can build on the progress to date and achieve this goal through cost effective standards to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and vehicles, methane emissions from oil and gas operations, and HFC emissions from the chemical and consumer products industries.

 “Doing so will create new markets for technological ingenuity and will put the United States on track to the much deeper emission reductions needed to forestall out-of-control climate disruption and protect our health and the future our children inherit.”

Lashof is a key architect of a proposal offered by NRDC in December 2012 showing how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency can use the existing provisions of the Clean Air Act to cut power plant carbon pollution by at least 25 percent by 2020. The plan builds in flexibility for states and power providers to meet new federal standards. It also promotes technological innovation, energy efficiency, and delivers as much as $55 billion in net health and environmental benefits in 2020.

More on the NRDC plan can be found here: http://www.nrdc.org/air/pollution-standards/

Lashof’s full Senate EPW testimony can he found here: http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/files/glo_14011601a.pdf