Climate Change / Global Warming & Investing Implications

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EPA weakens mercury reduction requirements for power plants

March 15, 2005: A new rule issued by the Environmental Protection Agency institutes a controversial cap-and-trade approach (effective in 2010), which is intended to cut mercury pollution from the nation's coal-fired power plants by 70 percent beginning in 2018. Environmental groups criticized the rule as giving electric utilities a free pass from controlling their mercury pollution for more than a decade. They also said the rule violates the Clean Air Act by failing to place stringent controls on a dangerous pollutant that especially threatens women and children.

Like lead, mercury is a dangerous poison. It is toxic to infants' developing nervous systems, and several studies have linked mercury exposure to cardiovascular disease. At least 44 states have issued warnings urging residents to avoid or limit their consumption of certain fish caught in local waters. Meanwhile, the federal government has issued warnings recommending children and women of childbearing age to avoid certain fish altogether, and to limit their fish consumption to two meals of low-mercury fish per week. Recognizing mercury's health risks, the public's widespread exposure to it, and the fact that power plants are the largest remaining unregulated source of mercury pollution, the EPA in 2000 found that "mercury emissions from electric utility steam generating units are considered a threat to public health and the environment," and decided to require maximum achievable controls by 2008.

The EPA's new rule overturns that prior determination, according to critics. In place of stringent controls, the agency has created a pollution trading scheme -- the first ever such market for a toxin -- that the EPA predicts will only reduce pollution by 50 percent in 2020. The agency could not even provide a date after 2020 when power plants would actually achieve the EPA's 70 percent reduction goal, a cut the agency could easily require now. (In December, 2001, EPA staff reached a preliminary determination that requiring maximum achievable mercury emissions reduction would result in a 90 percent cut within three years, from approximately 50 tons to 5 tons annually. The new rule will permit power plants to emit 38 tons of mercury until 2018.)

"The EPA's rule is illegal, irresponsible and breaks the promise the agency made five years ago to slash hazardous pollutants, including mercury, from coal-burning power plants. It also puts into place a pollution trading scheme that will allow power plants to emit far more mercury for much longer than the law permits," said John Walke, director of NRDC's clean air program. "Essentially, the agency adopted a 'do-nothing' approach to mercury for the next 12 years."

http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/health.asp