Climate Change / Global Warming & Investing Implications

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States sue EPA over new mercury rule

March 29, 2005: Nine states have filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency over a mercury emissions rule they say is less protective of public health than current law. The lawsuit accuses the EPA of violating the Clean Air Act by exempting coal-fired power plants from the law's "maximum available control technology" requirement for cutting pollutants. The suit alleges that full implementation of the Clean Air Act would reduce annual mercury pollution from 48 tons to 5 tons, whereas the EPA's new rule will permit 15 tons per year. The new rule also pushes back deadlines for compliance from 2008 to 2018, with controls not taking full effect until 2026. Moreover, the attorneys general representing the states -- California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Vermont -- argue in their suit that the agency's cap-and-trade approach to mercury control would create toxic "hotspots" in communities near polluting plants.

"The EPA's mercury rule does too little, too late," said John Walke, director of NRDC's clean air program. "Public health is not served by allowing power plants to delay pollution cuts for a more than a decade, requiring lower reductions in mercury emissions than the Clean Air Act, and then letting companies pay to keep polluting."

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