KYA Bill Rough Draft
BY: Matthew Panaretos, Ethan Raque, Landon Williams and
Christopher Jordan
The
Trump Administration has put into effect the
Affordable Clean Energy Rule, which allows states to set their
own targets for carbon emissions instead of meeting the higher
national standards. While this would be a benefit to coal-fired
power plants, the thousands of residents breathing such
polluted air would pay the price with greater health problems.
Kentucky should take the example from other states, like Ohio,
that have successfully moved away from coal power to cleaner
and more efficient natural gas, geothermal and solar energy.
The state should set a ten year plan to increase the
availability of natural gas and solar power plants and decrease
the use of coal power by 50% during that time. Kentucky’s
leaders need to put citizens’ health as a priority. Eliminating
coal pollutants from the air will reduce the number of cancer
cases and chronic disease, which means less money being
needed to pay for such major medical issues.