AEP’s new President Nick Akins slammed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) yesterday in a speech before the US Chamber of Commerce, taking aim at the EPA's life-saving standards which will save tens of thousands of lives.
As The Hill reports, Akins blasted pending Environmental Protection Agency regulations, arguing they “make absolutely no sense.”
In fairness, Akins’ remarks may have been directed at the EPA's desire for prompt cleanup, something AEP has complained about before and is using its influence to try to change: During his speech, Akins also noted AEP’s support for legislation authored by Senators Joe Manchin (WV) and Dan Coats (IN) that would block and delay the pollution reductions the EPA is calling for.
But when it comes down to it, delaying cleanup will cost lives. Prompt cleanup will save them. As NRDC has pointed out before, the Coats-Manchin legislation would cost at least 73,000 deaths nationally by delaying pollution reductions.
How does saving those lives "make absolutely no sense?"
Maybe you have to be AEP's President to see things that way. After all, dirty power producers don't have to answer to the families suffering the health consequences of dir air. And AEP is responsible for a lot of those, as a new NRDC analysis shows. The consequences of AEP’s pollution in 2011 include as many as 3,200 deaths, tens of thousands of asthma attacks and over a million lost-work or reduced activity days, adding up to nearly $24 billion in costs imposed on the rest of us.
You know what would make a lot more sense? Letting the EPA know you support its efforts to protect our health from dangerous air pollution and polluters. Click here to do it now.
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