While the Inflation Reduction Act injects $370 billion in climate investments into our economy, which will bring with them significant health benefits, there is still more work to do to combat climate change. To celebrate and remember the 12 Days of Christmas, the greatest gift the Biden administration could provide this country is robust climate action.
Existing power plants like the coal-fired Dave Johnson plant in Glenrock, Wyo., produce 25% of all U.S. carbon pollution, but the EPA recently announced an eight-month delay in setting carbon standards for them. J. David Ake/Associated Press, File
Here’s a set of positive steps that could be taken for each of the 12 days.
• Issue carbon standards for new power plants. With scores of new power plants currently proposed, the Environmental Protection Agency has the ability to set climate pollution standards for them. Unfortunately, the EPA recently announced a delay in setting standards on new power plants.
• Issue carbon standards for existing power plants. The EPA should set climate pollution standards for existing power plants, which currently produce 25% of all U.S. carbon pollution. The EPA recently announced an eight-month delay in the rule.
• Issue mercury and air toxics standards. The EPA’s mercury and air toxics standards limit the amount of toxic chemicals that power plants can release. Tragically, there is no safe level of these dangerous substances for young children, yet the EPA has not explored new abatement technologies for nearly a decade.
• Issue a national smog standard. The EPA should strengthen the National Ambient Air Quality Standard for ground-level ozone, commonly known as smog, which causes long-term respiratory harm.
• Issue a national soot standard. The EPA is currently working to strengthen the national ambient air quality standard for fine particulate matter. Soot causes up to 200,000 deaths in the U.S. annually and disproportionately harms communities of color.
• Issue a stronger regional haze rule. The regional haze rule requires states and federal agencies to collaborate to improve visibility on public lands by reducing particulate matter pollution. The EPA needs to strengthen this rule to further reduce pollution.
• Issue a coal ash rule. Without proper storage, coal ash can contaminate groundwater and cause cancer. The EPA needs to expand the scope of its 2015 rule or issue a new rule closing all exemptions for storage facilities.
• Finalize the “good neighbor rule.” The EPA needs to finalize its rule to strengthen the good neighbor rule, otherwise known as the cross-state air pollution rule, concerning ozone pollution that crosses state borders.
• Issue clean car standards. The Biden administration needs to establish a stronger 2030 clean car standard, ensure that all new cars and light-duty trucks are zero-emission no later than 2035, and guarantee that all new trucks and buses are zero-emission no later than 2040.
• Designate Nevada’s Avi Kwa Ame as a national monument. The proposed 443,000-acre Spirit Mountain includes lands that are sacred or culturally significant to 12 local tribes. Monument status will not only honor a landscape deeply rooted in Indigenous cultures but also will protect the land from oil and gas drilling while delivering on climate solutions through land conservation.
• Designate Castner Range in West Texas a national monument. Castner Range sits on 7,081 acres of land and is the ancestral homeland of the Comanche and Apache people. A national monument at Castner Range helps ensure that nature is accessible to all Americans and will reduce climate impacts through land conservation.
• Designate Chumash Heritage, a marine sanctuary off the coast of central California, as a national marine monument. Advocated for by the Northern Chumash Tribal Council, this area includes sacred submerged sites of the Chumash Peoples, important oceanographic features and prime habitat for marine life. Designation would amplify Indigenous voices for ocean conservation as well as contributing to the preservation of 30% of land and water by 2030.
These gifts would not lavish one or some recipients, but would provide climate solutions to us all.
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