…“What a proud day it is for public health and protection of the environment,” [said] Janet McCabe, acting assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation…Public health is the calcium that strengthens the Clean Power Plan’s teeth. And this isn’t the first time the Feds connected public health to climate. In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA could regulate greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide as pollutants under the Clean Air Act…If cutting carbon emissions means cutting coal…then other nasty stuff goes away, too. Soot, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxide belching out of smokestacks contribute to heart and lung disease. The EPA estimates the Clean Power Plan will help avoid between 2,700 and 6,600 premature deaths per year by 2030…Making the case that reducing US reliance on coal is a win for clean air is easier in the short term. While climate change may cause sea levels to rise, exacerbate drought and floods, and make North America more hospitable to new diseases, those outcomes are hard to imagine. Higher asthma and allergy rates and more smog, though? Those are visible results.