The Regional Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency says climate change is already happening in Kansas and the entire region. As Bryan Thompson reports, Administrator Karl Brooks says the best way to minimize climate change is to implement the EPA's Clean Power Plan.
Brooks says that’s because power plants are the largest uncontrolled source of carbon emissions in America.
“Our obligation to regulate those pollutants is clear," he says. "The Supreme Court announced that nearly six years ago.”
The EPA still hasn’t finalized its plan to regulate carbon emissions from power plants. The proposed rules would require existing power plants in Kansas to cut carbon emissions by an overall figure of 23 per cent by the year 2030. New power plants would have to keep their carbon emissions below a set level—one that would be impossible to meet without using carbon capture and storage. Brooks says now is the time for American innovation.
“This country is in a better position to compete and win globally by moving toward a lower carbon economy, because that’s what markets want, that’s what investors reward, that’s what customers prefer," he says.
Brooks says states like Kansas, which rely on agriculture to drive the economy, have much at stake as climate change is already causing more extreme weather of all types.
