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SALT LAKE CITY — A national group of business leaders and an evangelical network praised the Obama administration's proposed Clean Power Plan as a clean-energy job producer and a step toward addressing what they say is the most pressing global challenge of modern time: climate change.
The plan, rolled out in June and under public comment that ended Monday, is the cornerstone of President Barack Obama's Climate Action plan and seeks to cut carbon pollution from existing power plants by 30 percent in 15 years.
"It is something that is good for America, good for our economy and good for our environment," said Bob Keefe, executive director of Environmental Entrepreneurs, a national group of business leaders.
Keefe spoke on the proposed carbon cutting plan during a Monday teleconference in which he was joined by the Rev. Mitchell C. Hescox, president and CEO of the Evangelical Environmental Network, a national ministry.
Hescox said that while polls show white evangelicals are the group of religious people most likely to be global warming skeptics, more than 100,000 pro-life Christians weighed in with well over 200,000 comments in support of the Clean Power Plan.
"We have been able to reach and activate those considered unreachable by traditional environmentalists simply because we share their values and speak their language," Hescox said. "For us, climate change is the greatest moral challenge of our time as it exacerbates our biblical concerns to care for the least of these, especially our children."
Hescox said a recent outreach of Florida evangelicals revealed that their action on climate was motivated by the commitment to pro-life, pro-family values and the desire to protect their children.
"In an ideal world, there would be no need for standards or regulations to defend our children," Hescox said, lamenting pollution's link to asthma and other adverse health effects on children. "All of us know sin is real and the world is not perfect."
It is something that is good for America, good for our economy and good for our environment.
–Bob Keefe, Environmental Entrepreneurs
The EPA, in proposing to regulate carbon pollution, said power plants are its largest source and account for roughly one-third of domestic greenhouse gas emissions in the country. The proposal aims to cut pollution that leads to smog and soot by more than 25 percent by 2030 and reduce pollution-related health impacts to the nation's elderly and children, according to the agency.
The proposal includes state-specific pollution targets based on electrical generation, a component of the plan that has raised criticism among key economists who say it may not achieve intended reductions. States, for example, could meet the Environmental Protection Agency target by increasing their electrical generation — which has the potential to actually increase emissions.
In May, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued a report that said the plan as proposed would cost $50 billion between now and 2030.
The Utah Office of Energy Development and the Utah Division of Air Quality are among the state agencies that have weighed in on the proposal, adding their comments to the more than 8 million that have been received across the country.
Bryce Bird, air quality division director, said regulators have concerns on how the carbon targets were derived and their link to interstate power generation. The proposal also gives a one-year time frame for states to respond with a pollution-cutting plan, which, Bird added, is unrealistic given the plans' complexity.
