As expected, EPA announced new rules that would reduce mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants 20 percent by 2010, with a goal of 70 percent reduction by 2018. Environmental health and other groups assert that greater reductions could be achieved much more rapidly, and that EPA's decision will endanger the health of hundreds of thousands of newborn babies.

Mercury is known to harm the brain and nervous system, especially in infants. It can cause learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder and mental retardation. One in six U.S. women of child-bearing age is reported to have enough mercury in her blood to put a developing fetus at risk. [1] The primary means of exposure is through consumption of certain species of deep ocean fish, such as tuna and pollock.

The Bush Administration is proposing a "cap and trade" system, whereby a national limit on mercury emissions would be set, but in which individual power plants could trade emissions credits. This would mean some states would achieve reductions in mercury pollution while others would actually experience an increase.

John Walke, director of the air pollution program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said this would result in enormous increases in mercury emissions in certain states. For example, an increase of 841% in California; 176% in Colorado; 241% in New Hampshire; and 56% in New Jersey. [2]

Martha Keating, a former mercury expert at EPA who is now a senior scientist at the Clean Air Task Force, joined others in saying that proper enforcement of the current Clean Air Act would be far more effective than the new mercury rule. "If the Clean Air Act was implemented as it should be, we would get significant reductions of mercury, upwards of 90 percent," she said on National Public Radio. "So [the new rule] in our mind is a rollback." [3]

"It is unconscionable EPA is allowing power companies to trade in a powerful neurotoxin--it is unprecedented and illegal," said William S. Becker, executive director of the bipartisan State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators. [4] Becker also heads the Association of Local Air Pollution Control Officials.

Recent criticism both by the EPA's own inspector general and by the non-partisan Government Accountability Office alleged that EPA ignored scientific evidence in developing its mercury rule, and called for further analyses. A Washington Post article said Agency staff charged that Bush Administration political operatives set the framework of the rule in advance, to support industry's claim that installing the newest air pollution control technology would be too expensive. [5]

Because mercury pollution of the oceans is a global problem, the UN Environmental Programme held an international meeting in Nairobi last month in an attempt to set in motion a plan to reduce the trade, mining and emission of mercury. The European Union has already decided to phase out mercury-cell chlorine production and close the largest mercury mine in Europe (located in Spain).

But U.S. officials blocked any concrete actions, instead calling for self-regulation, more studies, more discussion. Noting that the EPA has defended its new rule by saying mercury pollution is a global problem and therefore tighter controls on U.S. coal-fired power plants wouldn't solve it, Michael Bender of the Ban Mercury Working Group--a coalition of 27 public interest groups from several nations--said "The Administration is talking out of both sides of its mouth. Today they are saying the only way to solve the U.S. mercury problem is through international action. Yet three weeks ago they hijacked the process and blocked development of a global strategy."

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SOURCES:
[1] CleartheAir.org fact sheet.
[2] "Critics Say EPA Mercury Rule Rolls Back Protections," NPR, Mar. 15, 2005.
[3] Ibid.
[4] "Mercury Emissions to be Traded," Washington Post, Mar. 15, 2005.
[5] Ibid.