By Amy Harder
energy and environment reporter, National Journal
What are the economic, health and political significance of President Obama’s mercury standards for power plants?
EPA is poised to issue the first-ever national standards for mercury and other toxic air pollution from power plants. The regulations will require electric utilities throughout the country to install technology to control the pollution. Many power plants already comply with the rule, but others–namely older, coal-fired plants–will face challenges complying within the three-year timeline required by the Clean Air Act.
EPA said the rules will slash 90 percent of mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants and in turn save between 6,800 and 17,000 premature deaths, according to its draft rule announced in March. EPA said then that the rule will cost $10.9 billion a year and have annual health benefits between $59 and $140 billion.
What are the factors that EPA should consider when implementing the rule? What are the longer term implications of this rule in terms of both public health and the economy? What, if anything, should Congress do in reaction to this rule?
Response by Tom Wolf, Executive Director, Energy Council, Illinois Chamber of Commerce:
The debate surrounding the impending mercury standards from the US EPA hasn’t had any traction here in Illinois. That might sound a bit surprising given the fact that almost 50 percent of the electricity in the state comes from coal-fueled power plants. So how is this possible? Because the industry and the state EPA negotiated stringent mercury regulations several years ago that allowed enough time for each company to make business decisions and technological upgrades to meet the new standards.
So the individual plants have already or will soon meet the new standards and, according to the Illinois EPA, the state has already seen an average 75 percent decrease in mercury emissions – some individual coal plants have seen an almost 90 percent decrease.
This shows that there is a sweet spot for regulations that allow flexibility in how to reach the goals, include negotiated deadlines and are created to provide a substantial benefit to the environment.
Compare this to the US EPA’s current efforts to increase regulations of coal ash disposal. Coal ash is one of the residues from the process of turning coal into electricity. It is either stored in wet or dry landfills or recycled to make cement that is used in everything from road construction to buildings. The US EPA has been working on new regulations on coal ash disposal that have been handled by states in the past with few problems (though the few failures have had an unfortunate, dramatic impact). Proposed Federal regulations include the possibility of declaring coal ash a hazardous material – which would take away its ability to be recycled and severely limit the places it could be landfilled. All the choices will cost companies and (eventually) consumers money. More than 40 states have sent the US EPA negative comments on their proposed rules.
There is no doubt that promulgating new regulations is no picnic. But these two examples show that there is a right way and wrong way to approach the regulatory environment and it usually starts with focusing on the importance of the problem you’re trying to solve, determining if new regulations are actually warranted (or if current rules need to be better enforced) and then working with industry to give it a fair shot to meet the new standards. Over-reaction to headlines and asking for impossible deadlines only invite bigger fights and fewer solutions.
Sizing Up EPA’s Mercury Rules
National Journal
December 19, 2011
Share this:
