2-4-6-8, Are we supposed to appreciate? New industry-friendly mercury rule from Bush's EPA. - This could become big.
Last week I almost did a post which had it just the first part of the above caption. The subject of the post was a 3-15-05 AJC article that noted the following:
The Environmental Protection Agency is about to make final an industry-friendly rule that relaxes the agency's own goals for removing mercury from power plant smoke, environmentalists said Monday.
Several environmental organizations released a 182-page document, which they said was the new regulation, claiming it had been imposed on the agency by the White House.
"With this plan, the Bush administration will reach a new low in its willingness to manipulate science to give big companies big breaks," said Emily Figdor of Clear the Air, an anti-pollution coalition.
The document . . . appears to brush aside concerns from the National Academy of Sciences, members of Congress, the General Accounting Office, the EPA inspector general and hundreds of thousands of citizens who sent in comments on mercury pollution.
When ingested by a pregnant woman, usually in fish, mercury can disrupt the development of her baby's brain.
_______________
Today's Washington Post reports the following with respect to the new rule proposed by the EPA:
When the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a rule last week to limit mercury emissions from U.S. power plants, officials emphasized that the controls could not be more aggressive because the cost to industry already far exceeded the public health payoff.
What they did not reveal is that a Harvard University study paid for by the EPA, co-authored by an EPA scientist and peer-reviewed by two other EPA scientists had reached the opposite conclusion.
That analysis estimated health benefits 100 times as great as the EPA did, but top agency officials ordered the finding stripped from public documents, said a staff member who helped develop the rule. Acknowledging the Harvard study would have forced the agency to consider more stringent controls, said environmentalists and the study's author.
The mercury issue has long been the focus of heated argument between utilities and environmental advocates. Health advocates say mercury is so harmful to fetuses and pregnant women that steps are needed to sharply control emissions; industry groups and the Bush administration have warned that overly aggressive measures would impose heavy costs.
Asked about the Harvard analysis, Al McGartland, director of the EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics, said it was submitted too late to be factored into the agency's calculations. He added that crucial elements of the analysis were flawed.
Interviews and documents, however, show that the EPA received the study results by the Jan. 3 deadline, and that officials had been briefed about its methodology as early as last August.
The EPA has said that ocean species such as tuna, pollock, shrimp and halibut account for two-thirds of the mercury Americans consume, while catfish, the largest source of mercury among freshwater fish, accounts for only 3 percent.
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U.S. power plants contribute only about 1 percent of the mercury in the oceans, and thus this is not what makes this story have some potential for backfiring on this Bush administration.
Rather it is the EPA, and maybe at White House insistence, omitting the conflicting data involving the study which noted stricter limits were cost-effective. And it is not just this. According to the Washington Post story, but top agency officials ordered the finding stripped from public documents, and later lied about not having them in time to include them.
Stay tuned. This story could end up having legs. As in on the state level, the GOP is trying to introduce us to George Orwell's 1984 with strict control of legislation via hawks; here the GOP on the national level is going to control what information we get from the government so that we read what it wants us to read.
This post has two bottom lines. The first, this action demonstrates why former New Jersey governor Christie Whitman and then head of the E.P.A. resigned as head of the EPA as we have written about in the past (see 2-1-05 post on her), and second, the EPA spoken was stupid to lie and try to mislead.
The Environmental Protection Agency is about to make final an industry-friendly rule that relaxes the agency's own goals for removing mercury from power plant smoke, environmentalists said Monday.
Several environmental organizations released a 182-page document, which they said was the new regulation, claiming it had been imposed on the agency by the White House.
"With this plan, the Bush administration will reach a new low in its willingness to manipulate science to give big companies big breaks," said Emily Figdor of Clear the Air, an anti-pollution coalition.
The document . . . appears to brush aside concerns from the National Academy of Sciences, members of Congress, the General Accounting Office, the EPA inspector general and hundreds of thousands of citizens who sent in comments on mercury pollution.
When ingested by a pregnant woman, usually in fish, mercury can disrupt the development of her baby's brain.
_______________
Today's Washington Post reports the following with respect to the new rule proposed by the EPA:
When the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a rule last week to limit mercury emissions from U.S. power plants, officials emphasized that the controls could not be more aggressive because the cost to industry already far exceeded the public health payoff.
What they did not reveal is that a Harvard University study paid for by the EPA, co-authored by an EPA scientist and peer-reviewed by two other EPA scientists had reached the opposite conclusion.
That analysis estimated health benefits 100 times as great as the EPA did, but top agency officials ordered the finding stripped from public documents, said a staff member who helped develop the rule. Acknowledging the Harvard study would have forced the agency to consider more stringent controls, said environmentalists and the study's author.
The mercury issue has long been the focus of heated argument between utilities and environmental advocates. Health advocates say mercury is so harmful to fetuses and pregnant women that steps are needed to sharply control emissions; industry groups and the Bush administration have warned that overly aggressive measures would impose heavy costs.
Asked about the Harvard analysis, Al McGartland, director of the EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics, said it was submitted too late to be factored into the agency's calculations. He added that crucial elements of the analysis were flawed.
Interviews and documents, however, show that the EPA received the study results by the Jan. 3 deadline, and that officials had been briefed about its methodology as early as last August.
The EPA has said that ocean species such as tuna, pollock, shrimp and halibut account for two-thirds of the mercury Americans consume, while catfish, the largest source of mercury among freshwater fish, accounts for only 3 percent.
_______________
U.S. power plants contribute only about 1 percent of the mercury in the oceans, and thus this is not what makes this story have some potential for backfiring on this Bush administration.
Rather it is the EPA, and maybe at White House insistence, omitting the conflicting data involving the study which noted stricter limits were cost-effective. And it is not just this. According to the Washington Post story, but top agency officials ordered the finding stripped from public documents, and later lied about not having them in time to include them.
Stay tuned. This story could end up having legs. As in on the state level, the GOP is trying to introduce us to George Orwell's 1984 with strict control of legislation via hawks; here the GOP on the national level is going to control what information we get from the government so that we read what it wants us to read.
This post has two bottom lines. The first, this action demonstrates why former New Jersey governor Christie Whitman and then head of the E.P.A. resigned as head of the EPA as we have written about in the past (see 2-1-05 post on her), and second, the EPA spoken was stupid to lie and try to mislead.
posted by Sid Cottingham | 6:20 AM
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