MERCURY RULE REVIEW

State officials have asked Sen. Susan Collins, chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, to launch an investigation into the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent mercury rules. While the rules are flawed, such a request, for now, is premature because a review of the regulations is already under way.

In March, the EPA released a new rule for mercury emissions from coal-fired electric utilities even though the agency’s inspector general warned that the regulations were crafted to meet an industry-favored standard. The Government Accountability Office said the Clean Air Mercury Rule was based on flawed economic analyses. Last year, 45 senators, including Sens. Collins and Olympia Snowe, asked the EPA to withdraw the proposed mercury rule in favor of the stricter regulations required by the Clean Air Act.

The proposed rule requires the nation’s 600 coal-fired power plants to cut their total mercury emissions to 15 tons by 2018, a reduction of nearly 70 percent. The Clean Air Act requires power plants to install pollution control technology that would reduce mercury emissions by 90 percent by 2009.

The inspector general’s report, which said the rule was crafted backwards to meet a standard favored by industry, has triggered a review of the rule. The EPA earlier this month responded to the IG’s concerns. In a five-page letter, the agency told the inspector general to more closely read the rule and supporting documentation (thousands of pages worth) to better understand how the EPA developed the mercury rule. If the IG, w ho asked for further assessments and analysis, finds this response inadequate, she can turn the matter over to an impartial arbitration board.

Gov. John Baldacci and Attorney General Steven Rowe last week asked Sen. Collins to launch her own investigation into the Clean Air Mercury Rule and an accompanying rule that would remove coal- and oil-fired utility steam generating units from the Clean Air Act. The state has joined other states in filing a lawsuit challenging the de-listing rule and plans to file suit against the Clean Air Mercury Rule once it is published in the Federal Register.

The governor and attorney general are right that the proposed mercury rule is bad for Maine. Sen. Collins, through her legislative action and votes, is clearly aware of this too, but if her committee is going to question the process by which the mercury rules were derived the committee ought to wait until the inspector general’s reconsideration and any appeals process has concluded. The EPA usually is under the jurisdiction of the

Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee – respecting its interests matters too.

As frustrating as the process may be, Maine would do better to let the evidence gather in its favor before pushing a hearing.