If anybody has been following the events in Springfield recently, you would know that the City Council is facing the possibility of revoking a permit for the proposed Biomass plant. The original permit, opponents contend was for a very different project than the one now described and therefore the city has “just cause” to revoke the permit.
Among the arguments made during Tuesday’s presentation was that the EPA is reconsidering Biomass. Indeed it is!
However, there is a very big problem. As bad as the Senate amendment would have been for fossil fuel plants, it likely would have made regulating biomass plants impossible for the EPA. As Tuesday’s meeting showed, complete with convincing testimony from the opponents, there are real potential health effects of biomass plants. Several witnesses noted that the Springfield area already has poor quality, particularly on days with an air alert. Much of the health testimony focused on asthma, but opponents also noted the added risks of cardiopulmonary disease in general.
Moreover, because it appears that most plants require trees to be cut down and not merely taken from wood debris, it could have a negative effect on forests’ ability to sequester carbon naturally.
Now with that testimony, it seems next to impossible to distance a world in which the EPA cannot regulate a relatively new addition to poor air quality and that image in the League of Women Voters ad.
This is all fairly academic since Springfield is not represented by anybody in Washington who voted to gut the EPA. Wait a minute! Springfield does have a representative who voted to restrict the EPA’s ability to regulate emissions into our air: Scott Brown! So as Scott Brown has been bemoaning the fact that a non-partisan group “attacked” him called on residents to tell him to clean up his act, Springfield area residents have been in a fight to protect their air. Little did many realize that their own Senator had voted to make it next to impossible for voters to seek redress from the federal government’s EPA should the biomass plant hurts air quality in the Valley.
Scott Brown’s effort to dress down a bunch of women who prefer to keep breathing a safe family activity has relied on the hope that people never look behind the curtain and see that there are real policy implications behind the amendment he supported. Springfield’s own battle over keep its air clean takes the hot air out of brown argument should refocus the debate on the consequences as we here in the Valley can show the tangible consequences.
For more on Tuesday night’s hearing please check out my blog’s roundup of the hearing.
