FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 9, 2025
Contact: Ashley Sullivan, 1(917) 837-1183, Ashley.Sullivan@weact.org
WASHINGTON – WE ACT for Environmental Justice’s Yosef Robele, Federal Research Manager, testified today at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s public hearing for the proposed rollback of the updated Greenhouse Gas Standards and Guidelines for Fossil Fuel-Fired Power Plants. Read his testimony below:
Testimony for Environmental Protection Agency’s Hearing on the Greenhouse Gas Standards and Guidelines for Fossil Fuel-Fired Power Plants.
Monday July 7, 2025
Hello, thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Yosef Robele, Federal Policy Manager with WE ACT for Environmental Justice overseeing Energy and Transportation Issues. We convene the Clean Air for the Long Haul, a national cohort of environmental justice organizations working together to embed environmental justice in EPA rulemakings in the power and transportation sectors.
To begin, it is important to acknowledge the intractable nature of racial and ethnic discrimination. That even today in 2025, more than three decades after the publication of Toxic Waste and Race that the impacts of redlining, exclusionary zoning practices, explicit racism, and other discriminatory practices are evident in permitting practices, policies, and climate-change impacts. The actions being discussed today, unfortunately, fit within that framework, as this rollback of Carbon Standards for power plants is just another one of EPA’s numerous reckless actions to undermine our regulatory systems and give polluters a free pass to pollute in our communities while ignoring the unfolding climate disaster.
Today I am here to speak upon the fact that it is imperative that the EPA continue to regulate carbon emissions from power plants. Despite the EPA’s egregious claims to the contrary, power plants are the second largest source of climate pollution in our country, pollution that fuels the climate crisis. As you all know the climate crisis disproportionately impacts environmental justice communities like the ones WE ACT and other Clean AIr for the Long Haul members represent. I’d like to use my time here today to highlight just some of these impacts.
According to the EPA’s climate vulnerability assessment published in 2021
- Hispanic and Latino individuals 43% more likely to live in areas with the highest projected labor losses
- Native American Individuals 48% more likely to live in areas that will be inundated due to sea level rise
- Black Individuals are 40% more likely to live in the areas with the highest projected increases in mortality rates
That’s not all as the continued operation and expansion of these facilities release numerous toxic pollutants into our communities that are linked to respiratory issues, reproductive issues and cancer. For our communities the operations of these facilities impact our ability to breathe, have children, and to ultimately have long healthy and safe lives in our communities as we head into an uncertain future.
With this I would like to underscore that It is the EPA’s duty to protect our communities from polluters and the impending climate crisis. The actions being discussed here today must not move forward. With that I’d like to thank you all for the opportunity to speak and of course offer myself up to further talks moving forward. Thank you.
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WE ACT for Environmental Justice is a Northern Manhattan-based, membership-driven organization whose mission is to build healthy communities by ensuring that people of color and/or low-income residents are meaningfully included in the development of sound and fair environmental health and protection policies and practices. WE ACT has offices in New York and Washington, D.C. Visit us at weact.org and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram.