A proposed rule on mercury could help the administration of President Barack Obama get near its short-term climate goal, even if the U.S. Congress fails this year or next to pass a bill tackling greenhouse gases directly.And even if there is no factual basis for doing so.
But the Environmental Protection Agency, under its administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, has been quietly preparing to crack down on coal, the most carbon-intensive fuel, as never before.
Pretty much what Bambi pledged to do ...
Under Ms. Jackson -- a former chemical engineer for an oil company who has said the idea that progress on the environment has to hurt the economy is a "false choice" -- the agency has begun to take steps to regulate greenhouse gases from automobiles, power plants and factories.
While the agency is considering new rules for coal, its proposal for emissions of mercury, which go up smokestacks at coal-fired power plants and enter the environment, could pack a bigger punch. The rule, which the agency was required by U.S. courts to issue by November 2011, is likely to help push many of the oldest and dirtiest emitters of carbon into retirement.
Environmental groups and a nurses' group sued to compel the agency to issue the rules, which it has to start enforcing three years after issuing them.
When combined with the agency's other current and coming rules on "criteria" pollutants, like ones that cause acid rain and smog, the mercury measure would require utilities to invest tens of millions of dollars on technologies to remove the substances.
All paid for by the nasty old utilities.
Many of those plants are about 50 years old and are already inefficient.
Where's the plan to replace them? Will we be importing electricity from the British wind farms?
