EPA balks at recommended mercury reduction technology
November 17, 2004: The Environmental Protection Agency is saying "thanks, but no thanks" to a mercury emissions technology -- activated carbon injection -- that it views as an ineffective tool to deliver major pollution cuts from coal-burning power plants. The agency's main objection is that the technology will not be available to all plants until 2010. The Bush administration's preferred air pollution proposal, the Clear Skies initiative, relies on a "cap-and-trade" program that requires power plants to reduce their mercury emissions by 70 percent by 2018.
Critics point out that the EPA's own projections, however, show that mercury emissions in the air will not be reduced by that amount under Clear Skies until some time after 2025, due to industry's ability to exceed the cap by drawing upon "banked" pollution credits. They also take issue with the fact that the EPA's own mercury advisory panel recommended the ACI technology, which could reduce mercury emissions by 90 percent, if widely applied. Unfortunately, the EPA disbanded that panel and has refused to analyze the more protective clean-up scenarios recommended by all members of the panel. However, the EPA's own mercury proposal used verbatim language crafted by utility industry lobbyists, according to news accounts.
"Too bad the EPA is pushing for the plan that preserves the greatest profits for industry[\b] instead of one that provides the greatest protections for the American people," said John Walke, senior attorney with NRDC's clean air program.
More than 630,000 infants are born in the United States every year with unsafe mercury levels in their blood, according to the EPA. The agency is expected to finalize its mercury reduction rule by March 15, 2005.
EPA mercury proposal favors industry, says agency's inspector general February 03, 2005: In devising its new rules on power-plant mercury emissions, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency violated agency protocol and ignored scientific evidence in order to meet a predetermined goal that favors industry, concluded a report by EPA Inspector General Nikki Tinsley. "Everything about this rule was decided at a political level," said one EPA staff member present at meetings between administrators and staff. "The political level made the decisions, and the staff did what they were told." The EPA is expected to issue its final mercury rule in mid-March.
"We now know why the new mercury rules ended up exactly in line with those proposed in Bush's so-called Clear Skies legislation," said John Walke, director of NRDC's clean air program.
White House scraps workshop on cardiovascular effects of mercury February 11, 2005: The Environmental Protection Agency, facing a March 15 deadline to issue a new toxic pollution control rule for power plants, has inexplicably put off a workshop on the cardiovascular benefits of mercury reduction. EPA scientists say the decision to postpone the January 31 meeting confirms their long-standing suspicions about the Bush administration's commitment to fully examining the benefits of regulating the toxic pollutant. Critics concur, accusing officials of scuttling a review that would have justified requiring more stringent controls on mercury pollution from power plants.
"The Bush administration doesn't want to face facts about the need to crack down on power plants' harmful mercury pollution," said Jon Devine, a health attorney at NRDC.
March 07, 2005: The Environmental Protection Agency skewed the analysis of its controversial plan to regulate mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants in order to bolster an approach supported by the Bush administration, according to the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. The EPA compared two approaches to limiting emissions of the dangerous neurotoxin, which poses a public health risk, especially for children and pregnant women.
The agency's analysis supported a "cap-and-trade" approach -- favored by the administration and industry -- in which pollution credits are traded among power plants over a "technology-based" approach -- favored by environmentalists -- that would cap mercury pollution at every plant. Blasting the agency for its lack of "transparency," the GAO report said that the EPA failed to adequately address mercury's harmful effects on brain development and other neurological functions, and overestimated the benefits of the cap-and-trade approach. Other critics accused the EPA of distorting its analysis in order to enhance the political prospects of the president's "Clear Skies" legislation. The GAO's report follows an equally critical report by the EPA's inspector general that suggested that agency scientists were pressured to back the industry-preferred mercury reduction proposal.
"Shame on the EPA for putting politics before science and jeopardizing the health of the American people," said John Walke, director of NRDC's clean air program. "No matter how you slice it, the president's mercury pollution plan is deeply flawed and downright dangerous."
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."
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."
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.
so to sum it up, this administration via the EPA has weakened the regulations for mercury pollution.
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