The Journal

Issue date: 4/7/05 Section: Opinion/Editorial

Rachael Horne

On March 15 the Bush administration released first-ever plans to cut mercury emissions from power plants. Sounds like a good thing. Mercury is a toxin that is harmful to people, especially pregnant women and children. How harmful depends on the level of exposure, but it can be debilitating to developing young life.

But instead of rules imposing limits on every plant, a system of pollution credits would be created that allow trading among power plants.

Nine states have sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for adopting a rule that potentially exposed the public to more harmful mercury emissions.

According to the EPA, the new rules would cut mercury emissions from the nation's 600 coal-burning power plants by nearly half within 15 years, from 48 tons of mercury pollution a year down to 24.3 tons in 2020. But, separate findings cast doubt on the credibility, effectiveness and public health benefit of the administration's new rules.

Maybe the EPA should pull back its new regulations on mercury until the public can be assured the best analysis shaped the rule. The administration argued the cap and trade approach was fairer to industry; cost to industry already far exceeded the public health benefit.

It turns out that a Harvard study paid for by EPA, co-authored by an EPA scientist and peer-reviewed by other scientists, reached a the opposite conclusion. They mention health benefits 100 times greater than EPA's public statements.

The nonpartisan General Accountability Office said the administration slanted the analysis to make it appear the market-based approach was far superior to competing alternatives, and it was not.

The Washigton Post reported the EPA's inspector general suggested agency scientists were pressured to back the industry's favored approach.

The emissions from coal-burning power plants carry mercury that falls into lakes and streams during rainstorms. Mercury gets stored in the tissues of fish. The most common way people get mercury poisoning is by eating too much poisoned fish.

The lawsuit alleges that the EPA broke the law by enacting a rule that exempts power plant emissions of mercury from a Clean Air Act requirement that "maximum available control technology" be used to reduce toxic air pollution.

This all follows on the heels of the administration's failed "Clear Skies" initiative that Congress viewed as too soft on smokestack emissions from power plants.

Instead of forming mercury task forces advising pregnant women to limit consumption of tuna, swordfish or other seafood, maybe the EPA should focus on actually reducing the levels of mercury that contaminate our waters.

The EPA has ignored sound science. They are putting private profits ahead of public health. People have a right to clean air, clean water and clean food. This plan doesn't allow for that.






Rachael Horne, a senior journalism major, is the sports editor for The Journal.

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