For too long, power plants have pumped unlimited amounts of dangerous carbon pollution into our air.  This pollution fuels global warming, which threatens our health with more of the unhealthy air days that contribute to thousands of asthma attacks and other fatal diseases and threatens our safety with more extreme weather.

Unchecked carbon pollution will spur global warming impacts including longer droughts, hotter heat waves and more damaging storms and floods. These impacts can be seen in Minnesota with the current fire weather advisory that is in effect for twelve Minnesotan counties including East Marshall, East Polk, Kittson, Lake of the Woods, North Beltrami, North Clearwater, Pennington, Red Lake, Roseau, South Beltrami, West Marshall and West Polk.

Right now, President Barack Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency are working to fix this.  They’ve proposed the first-ever carbon pollution standards for new power plants — a truly historic step toward cleaning up the largest single source of carbon pollution.

The EPA is accepting public comments on the standards until June 25, and it is critical that Minnesotans show support for this historic step for public health and our environment.