WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — On Wednesday, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy, the chief environmental regulator in the United States, acknowledged that the Obama administration’s Clean Energy Plan would raise utility costs in the short term.
"The current system unfairly targets the poor," Ash said on Thursday. "Utilities [supplying power in different regions of the United States] raise rates all the time whenever they want to in order to build new [polluting] coal plants."
She stated the Obama administration knows that low-income minority communities would be hardest hit.
Obama’s Clean Power Plan mandates major reductions carbon dioxide emissions in 47 US states.
Ash noted the EPA chief was correct in acknowledging that electricity costs would rise in the short term as the Clean Energy Plan was first implemented, but that long-term savings would more than compensate for this.
However, Ash pointed out that McCarthy had not addressed the issue of continuing discrimination by state governments, and legislatures around the United States.
"There are a lot of regulatory obstacles that need to be removed" at state level to ensure cheaper and fair energy prices for more disadvantaged communities across the United States, he said.
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