DISAPPROVING OF MERCURY

The Senate today is expected to have a chance to overturn a deeply flawed rule regarding the emissions of mercury, a potent neurotoxin. Although most lawmakers are likely to let this opportunity pass, the fact that a significant number of senators, including Maine’s, have taken the unusual step of voicing their displeasure by requiring a vote on the rule highlights how flawed it is.

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 backward to meet an industry-favored standard. The IG also found that the agency failed to adequately consider the rules impact on the health of children and uncovered instances where language that appears in the rule was taken directly from industry memos, without public comment as required by law. The Government Accountability Office said the Clean Air Mercury Rule was based on flawed economic analyses and that cost-effective controls currently exist to achieve far greater mercury reduction that what the EPA required in the rule.

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.

Another rule from the EPA removes coal- and oil-fired utility steam generating units from the Clean Air Act requirements on mercury emissions.

Last year, the EPA reported that the number of water bodies with fish contamination advisories due to high levels of mercury increased almost 10 percent between 2002 and 2003. According to the report, more than 3,000 lakes and rivers were under fish-consumption advisories, with 280 new water bodies added last year. In Maine, 19 rivers and lakes have been under such advisories, which such limiting fish consumption due to mercury contamination, for a decade.

Long concerned about the weakness of the mercury rules the EPA was crafting, Sen. Collins was the 30th, and first Republican, senator to sign on to a Joint Resolution of Disapproval and a petition to require the full Senate to review the emissions rule. Sen. Snowe was the 31st senator to sign the resolution and petition. They are the only Republicans among the 34 senators who have signed the resolution, which needed 30 to be sent directly to the Senate floor and not through the Environment and Public Works Committee, which has oversight of the EPA.

Rep. Tom Allen is one of 22 House members to sign a similar review, where 218 signatures are needed.

Despite the widespread dissatisfaction with the rules, they are not likely to be overturned. Instead, states, including Maine, that have sued the EPA can add the disapproval petition, an unusual occurrence, to their growing list of arguments for overturning the weak mercury rules.