Attorneys
General and an Environmental Protection
Secretary representing 11 states are filing
a lawsuit today challenging a new federal
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
rule that establishes a cap-and-trade
system for regulating harmful mercury
emissions from power plants. The rule
will delay meaningful emission reductions
for many years and perpetuate hot spots
of local mercury deposition, posing a
grave threat to the health of children.
The
rule was published today in the Federal
Register. The states previously filed
suit against a separate EPA rule published
March 29 that removed power plants from
the list of pollution sources subject
to stringent pollution controls under
the federal Clean Air Act. EPA announced
both the de-listing rule and the cap-and-trade
rule on March 15. The trading scheme established
by the rules will allow power plants to
elect, rather than reducing their own
mercury emissions, to purchase emissions
credits from plants that reduce emissions
below targeted levels.
The
New Jersey Attorney General is filing
the suit today in the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the District of Columbia Circuit on
behalf of the coalition, which also includes
the Pennsylvania Environmental Protection
Secretary and the Attorneys General of
California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts,
New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Vermont
and Wisconsin.
Cap-and-trade
emission trading programs, while sometimes
appropriate for general air pollutants
such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides,
are inappropriate for mercury because
they can allow localized deposition of
mercury to continue unabated near plants
that choose not to reduce emissions, perpetuating
hot spots and hot regions that can significantly
impact the health of individual communities.
Through
mercury deposition, mercury enters the
food chain and ultimately is consumed
by humans, resulting in severe harm, particularly
when ingested by pregnant or nursing mothers
or young children. Children can suffer
permanent brain and nervous system damage
from exposure to even low levels of mercury,
which frequently occurs in utero. Mercury
exposure can cause attention and language
deficits, impaired memory, and impaired
visual and motor functions.
Coal-fired
power plants are the largest source of
uncontrolled mercury emissions, generating
48 tons of mercury emissions per year
nationwide.
New Jersey Attorney General Peter C. Harvey
said: “These rules are deeply flawed
and contrary both to science and the law.
Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that damages
the developing brains of fetuses and young
children. EPA has failed to meet its obligation
under the Clean Air Act to adopt rules
that will protect our children from toxic
power plant emissions.”
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer
said: “All of our communities, all
of our women and children, deserve the
strongest possible protections against
exposure to this significant public health
hazard. The government has a duty to provide
that protection. With these rules, the
Bush Administration has failed to honor
that duty and, in the process, not been
forthright with the American people.”
Connecticut
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said:
“These regulations present an unacceptable
risk to the health of children and pregnant
women. A cap-and-trade system will concentrate
mercury contamination in hot zones, unnecessarily
exposing millions to this deadly toxin.
The Bush administration allowed this rule
by illogically reversing an earlier finding
that mercury should be subject to stringent
rules governing hazardous substances.
In fact, there is no question that mercury
is a proven killer, and this rule aids
and abets its deadly effects.”
Massachusetts
Attorney General Tom Reilly said: “These
new rules leave young children and pregnant
women at risk of exposure to mercury.
Instead of addressing the issue of mercury
pollution head on, the EPA has chosen
to suppress key documents about potentially
more effective alternatives and release
rules that undercut the Clean Air Act.
The EPA must do more to protect the people
of Massachusetts and the United States
from toxic pollution.”
New
Mexico Attorney General Patricia A. Madrid
said: “Once again, the Bush administration
fails to demonstrate concern for the health
and safety of our citizens. The EPA has
adopted a mercury emissions rule that
effectively exempts power plants from
doing what they can to limit the emissions
of chemicals that are known to cause specific
dangerous birth and developmental defects.
The EPA's action allows these dangers
to continue unabated in some communities,
and that is why this rule must be challenged
and overturned.”
New
York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said:
“Mercury is a toxin that harms people
and pollutes the environment. This EPA
rule does not do nearly enough to reduce
mercury pollution from power plants. The
people and the environment deserve much
better protection from this poison.”
Pennsylvania
Environmental Protection Secretary Kathleen
A. McGinty said: “The administration's
mercury proposal is insufficiently protective
of public health. EPA was right in 2000
in recognizing mercury as a hazardous
air pollutant that needs to be regulated
strictly. They are wrong now in changing
course. President Bush speaks of a ‘culture
of life.’ The Administration's actions
here, however, do not match these words
and the rule falls far short of what is
required to protect vulnerable young lives.”
Vermont
Attorney General William Sorrell said:
“EPA told us in 2000 that mercury
was a hazardous air pollutant that had
to be strictly regulated. Now they are
effectively telling us it's not that bad.
We simply cannot let them get away with
sweeping this problem under the rug.”
Wisconsin
Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager said:
“Years ago, EPA listed mercury as
a hazardous air pollutant because of its
serious health and environmental effects.
Efforts underway now by EPA to exempt
mercury from the achievable controls required
by law are wrong-headed and dangerous.”
EPA
studied the health hazards posed by toxic
emissions from power plants, including
mercury, and determined in 2000 that power
plants must be regulated under Section
112 of the Clean Air Act, which requires
that “maximum achievable control
technology” (MACT) be used to control
those emissions. The de-listing rule that
EPA published on March 29 exempts power
plants from regulation under Section 112,
reversing EPA’s prior determination
that the strictest controls are necessary
to protect public health.
A
strict MACT standard, as required by the
Clean Air Act, would reduce mercury emissions
to levels approximately three times lower
than the cap established in the cap-and-trade
rule EPA published today. EPA’s
cap-and-trade rule will reduce mercury
emissions from power plants from the current
level of 48 tons per year to 15 tons per
year. MACT controls, on the other hand,
would reduce emissions at each facility
by about 90 percent, reducing total mercury
emissions from power plants to about 5
tons per year. Moreover, the new EPA rule
extends the deadline for compliance from
2008 to 2018, with full reductions not
expected until at least 2026.
Exposure
to the most toxic form of mercury comes
primarily from eating contaminated fish
and shellfish. However, fish advisories,
which have been adopted by EPA, are not
an adequate substitute for appropriate
regulation of mercury emissions under
the Clean Air Act.
Scientists
estimate up to 600,000 children may be
born annually in the United States with
neurological problems leading to poor
school performance because of mercury
exposure while in the womb. Fish from
waters in 45 of our 50 states have been
declared unsafe to eat as a result of
poisoning from mercury.
At
least 40 percent of lakes in New Hampshire
and Vermont contain fish mercury levels
in excess of federal standards. In New
Jersey, there are mercury consumption
advisories for at least one species of
fish in almost every body of water in
the state.
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