by Frank O’Donnell.
Cross-posted from the Wonk Room.
As federal authorities struggle to deal with the BP oil disaster in
the Gulf of Mexico, it is probably useful to remember that power
companies continue poisoning water bodies throughout the nation. The
power industry’s successful campaign to sidestep toxic pollution
controls has left a legacy of poisoned
rivers and lakes. As ugly as this legacy seems, the power industry
appears to be maneuvering once again for further delays, trying to use
pending Senate climate legislation as an escape hatch.
A draft version of the Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act would
create a new task force to examine pending EPA air pollution rules for
the power industry, and make recommendations about weakening or
eliminating public health safeguards in the name of electricity
generation reliability. The American Lung Association has warned that
this provision could undermine
EPA’s efforts to tackle toxic emissions from power plants. That
concern was echoed by NRDC, long a leader in the effort to clean
up toxic mercury:
Specifically, the draft bill establishes a highly
objectionable task force to examine utility industry calls for
exemptions from federal environmental laws and regulations that
utilities allege are impeding power plant retirements or transitions to
cleaner energy. The provision’s language is suffused with utility
industry complaints and rhetoric and pleas for payment, making clear the
design for a biased exercise. Polluter lobbyists deliver a
deregulatory wish list to Congress and federal agencies. The
agencies then are authorized by this bill to propose regulatory changes
to carry out those wishes.
A spokesman for the utility industry said it welcomed
the provision.
The language of the American Power Act is the latest in a long
history of compromises. When Congress passed sweeping and generally
positive revisions to the Clean Air Act in 1990, the legislation
compromised on toxic air pollution. Frustrated with the generally slow
pace in cleaning up hazardous air emissions, Congress ordered the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency to take action to clean up industrial
sources of mercury and other hazardous pollutants. But, in one fateful
last minute compromise, Congress caved to pressure and gave a special
deal to the powerful electric power industry: EPA was told it could
not set toxic air pollution standards for electric power plants
until it had completed a special study of the industry.
Law makers in 1990 probably could not have imagined that two long
decades later, mercury and other toxic emissions from power plants
remain uncontrolled—even though the power industry is the biggest
domestic source of toxic mercury air pollution in the nation, which has
contaminated all 50 states.
This saga
of delay has several
low points worth recalling:
1995: EPA missed
its initial study deadline, but agreed in a legal settlement with
the Natural Resources Defense Council to complete work on the project.
2000: Despite massive lobbying by the coal-burning power industry,
EPA 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 at all power plants by 2008. But industry
continued its lobbying campaign—both in Congress and at the EPA. The
Bush administration’s Orwellian “Clear Skies Initiative” would have
eliminated the mercury control requirement and substituted a weaker
cap-and-trade control strategy. This may have reduced mercury levels
but could have perpetuated mercury “hot spots.”
2005: After Congress rejected the “Clear Skies” plan, the Bush
administration attempted to rescind tough toxic air pollution control
requirements for the power industry and substitute a weak cap-and-trade
system that would not have required any mercury-specific pollution
controls before 2018. Because of delays inherent in such a trading
system, the plan would have required approximately a 70 percent reduction in
mercury emissions—but not until the year 2026! A federal court threw
out the Bush plan as illegal, and ordered EPA to go back and follow
the law.
EPA is currently under a legal agreement to propose toxic pollution
requirements for the power industry by March 2011 and to set final
standards by November 2011. These standards are critical. As the EPA
notes, “Coal-burning power plants are the largest human-caused source
of mercury emissions to the air in the United States, accounting for
over 50 percent of all domestic human-caused mercury emissions.”
As the Environmental Integrity Project recently reported, overall
mercury emissions from power plants were virtually
the same in 2008 as in 2000—and more than half of the dirtiest
power plants actually increased their mercury emissions from 2007 to
2008!
It’s a no-brainer that we need to reduce global warming from power
plants, and the American Power Act would be a step in that direction.
But it’s critical to reduce mercury and other toxics as well. Two
decades of delay is far too long.
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