Two recent initiatives that are going to improve the health of Maine residents need to be protected from being weakened by several current Congressional proposals.
The Clean Power Plan of Aug. 3, 2015 was welcome news for the people of Maine and the other New England States, who have been the recipients of the dirty air pollution from the coal and gas power plants west and south of us. Over the years we have demanded and pleaded that these plants clean up their discharges that arrive in Maine on the upwinds. If the Clean Power Plan is not weakened, the health costs of Maine’s people should soon be drastically reduced by lowering the cases of asthma, emphysema, CPD, and cancer.
Added to this are the recently announced, first ever, Methane Clean Emissions Act from oil and gas sites around the nation. Methane gas stays at ground levels causing smog, and trapping more heat than CO2. Industry wastes millions of tons of methane gas and other air pollutants in their drilling process although there are available and affordable economical preventions. Reducing the methane gas could cut global warming by more than 25 percent by 2025.
Jean O’Brien Perkins,
Phippsburg
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