Fugitives from Reality

Courtesy of Effect Measure, we get a story about how the compliant Bush Administration has permitted utility industry lobbyists to draft portions of proposed regulations for control of mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. Senator Patrick Leahy, who is asking EPA for an explanation, has some of the documents showcasing industry’s involvement with the rulemaking (let’s hear it for eDocket!) on his web site.

Previously, EPA rulemaking would have required 1,100 coal- and oil-fired power plants to meet an emissions standard that sharply reduced mercury emissions – with a three year compliance timeframe. Industry organizations strongly criticized the proposed rule, saying they would be excessively costly and impossible to meet with existing technology. The Bush Administration set those regulations aside and proposed instead a "cap and trade" program, similar what has been used to control power plant emissions that produce acid rain. That plan would reduce mercury emissions by nearly 70 percent, but with a 2018 compliance date. It would let utilities buy emission credits from cleaner-operating plants to meet an overall industry target without having to install controls on every power plant. The cap and trade program is part of the “Clear Skies” initiative, and a better name for an industry-friendly air pollution control program couldn’t have been found. However, we’re told, amazingly enough in the Washington Monthly, that Clear Skies isn’t half-bad.

It must be an interesting place, the parallel universe where all this stuff is coming from. It can’t be coming from this Earth, where mercury concentrations have been increasing worldwide, particularly in the past few decades, including in Arctic ecosystems that are well away from any emissions sources; where 300,000 newborns per year in the U.S. may have had placed at an increased risk of adverse neurodevelopmental effects as a result of in utero methyl mercury exposure; and, where women have to limit the amount of fish they eat to the equivalent of a paltry two cans of tuna a week, so as to not put their fetuses at risk from mercury exposure. Even with significant, very rapid reductions in power plant emissions, we’re going to have mercury exposures with us for a very long time. It’s difficult to see how “Clear Skies” is going to have any effect at all on global mercury cycling or human exposure to mercury.

Washington Monthly is going to have to publish a lot of articles by Philip Longman to make up for this one.