Dirty Energy Industry's Plot to Hijack the new US Clean Power Plan
Dirty energy companies have lobbied for inclusion of a deceptive loophole in the new US Clean Power Plan that would allow burning of biomass and other toxic waste to count as "clean energy."
This means all your paper, food waste, and worst of all, plastic packaging that should be recycled, could instead be mixed with trees from our forests and burned. Burning plastic causes real problems for our environment and our health by releasing heavy metals and other toxins into the air, contributing to asthma and other illnesses. Eek! So why would the authors of the Clean Power Plan let that happen?
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is under serious pressure from dirty energy industries that want to market this type of biomass fuel as an alternative to coal. To dirty energy corporations looking to cut costs while maximizing profits, this is a convenient loophole. In reality, biomass creates very little energy—and a lot of pollution.
If the EPA allows dirty energy industries to create a loophole in the Clean Power Plan for burning biomass and other waste, the consequences are serious. Millions of public dollars could be burned up by switching one form of dirty energy for another dirty option, instead of helping grow real solutions like wind and solar power.
There isn’t much time left before the EPA finalizes the Clean Power Plan, but luckily both science and the White House are on our side. President Obama just took a stand against allowing this type of biomass burning to qualify as “clean energy” when he vetoed a similar policy in bill form.
The officials working on this policy need to hear the message that what we need now is real clean energy solutions for a brighter future, NOT another loophole for dirty energy industries.
Burning biomass is bad news for the climate and for our health. And when municipal waste gets added—which it often does—the result is a highly toxic mix of cancer and asthma-causing pollutants. And, according to new EPA allowances, a power plant only needs to substitute 15% of its coal with biomass to qualify as renewable energy. It’s just a bad idea all-around!
None of these materials belong in power plants. Burning biomass for energy is neither clean, nor green and these toxic practices unfairly impact people across the U.S., especially communities of color and poor communities. The only longterm solution to our energy crisis is to promote sustainable clean energy and resource conservation, NOT to burn waste and other Stuff. That’s why we’re joining with our friends at the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, the Climate Justice Alliance, as well as the Sierra Club, 350, Greenpeace, and nine other major environmental groups to stand strong for an effective Clean Power Plan today!
Letter from environmental groups to the Office of Management and Budget, June 23, 2015
The Hill: On Biomass, EPA Should Follow the Science, June 18, 2014
Dissident Voice: Dismantling Energy Apartheid in the United States, February 9, 2011