EPA overhauls mercury pollution rule, despite opposition from industry and activists alike
The changes could revamp the math on how the government values human health.
By Brady Dennis and Juliet Eilperin of The Washington Post
The Environmental Protection Agency changed the way the federal government calculates the costs and benefits of dangerous air pollutants, a shift that could restrict the ability of regulators to control toxins in the future.
The move announced Thursday, one in a series of actions taken by the Trump administration that experts say will probably increase air pollution, comes as the nation is fighting a deadly respiratory virus.
In its controversial decision, the EPA declared that it is not “appropriate and necessary” for the government to limit mercury and other harmful pollutants from power plants, even though every utility in America has complied with standards put in place in 2011 under President Barack Obama.
While the agency technically plans to keep existing restrictions on mercury, the changes mean the government would not be able to count collateral benefits — such as reducing soot and smog — when it sets limits on toxic air pollutants.
Some coal executives lobbied for the rollback, calling the Obama-era rule one of the worst examples of what President Trump has labeled the “war on coal.”
But most utilities urged the EPA to leave intact a rule they once opposed. Some share the concerns of environmental advocates, who worry that the change could lead to a legal challenge, prompting some power plants to turn off their pollution controls to save money and ultimately sicken more Americans.
“It’s a disgraceful decision coming on the heels of other poor decisions on air quality at a time we can least afford it,” former EPA administrator Carol M. Browner, now chair of the board of the League of Conservation Voters, said in a statement.
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Sen. Thomas R. Carper (Del.), the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said the move will worsen air quality and harm some of the country’s most vulnerable communities.AD
“This is a truly needless rollback that will only create more uncertainty for our nation’s utilities. It will only lead to worse public health outcomes and, truly, could not come at a worse time,” Carper said in a statement. “Our country is suffering the grave and growing loss of tens of thousands of American lives to a novel coronavirus that attacks our respiratory systems, and this EPA is advancing rules that will cause more respiratory illness.”
The rule in question, known as the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), targets a powerful neurotoxin that can affect the IQ and motor skills of children, even in utero. Between 2006, when states began to curb mercury from coal plants, and 2016, when the Obama-era rule took full effect, emissions have declined 85 percent.
The Obama administration initially projected that the industry would spend between up to $9.6 billion each year to comply with the regulation, while society as a whole would save between $37 billion and $90 billion from the prevention of thousands of premature deaths and lost work days.
Those estimates included not just lower mercury emissions but corresponding benefits from less soot and other smog-forming pollutants that contribute to asthma and other respiratory problems. Utilities ultimately paid far less to comply, spending about $18 billion between 2012 and 2018, or $3 billion annually.
But the Trump administration has argued that it is inappropriate to count such “co-benefits” when considering the economic impact of regulation, saying Obama used creative math to justify burdensome new requirements.
“We have put in place an honest accounting mechanism,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler told reporters Thursday, adding that “99 percent of the benefits” from the mercury rule came from a reduction in soot. “One would not say it is even rational, never mind appropriate, to impose billions in economic cost in return for a few dollars in health benefits.”
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