Enough of this Libya/Japan/Bahrain/Rio news.The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed rules Wednesday that would limit the emissions of mercury, arsenic and other pollutants from coal-fired power plants.
"With the help of existing technologies, we will be able to take reasonable steps that will provide dramatic protections to our children and loved ones," EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in announcing the rules. She described how her son, who has asthma, spent his first Christmas in the hospital "literally fighting to breathe."
A little personal touch from your friendly EPA Czar.
Power plant emissions of mercury had nothing to do with the little guy's troubles with asthma. None at all.
In other words, the head of the EPA doesn't have even a basic grasp of science and medicine, so necessary for understanding the arguments around the decisions she's being paid to make? This president really surrounds himself with the best and the brightest!
They're the reality-based community, remember, dedicated to preventing politics from seeping into science.
Environmental and health groups, which long sought the rules, welcomed them as a way to reduce respiratory illnesses, heart disease and developmental problems in children. Some industry groups said they would cost jobs and raise electric rates.
I suppose there's a little truth in both sides.
The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments mandated that EPA control industrial emissions, but coal-fired power plants avoided limits. A 2009 court ruling required the agency to propose such rules by March 16 and finalize them by November.
Jackson said the 44% of coal-fired plants that have yet to install the equipment would have more than three years to do so.
Does this mean 66% of the plants installed the equipment without the EPA making them?
She said the changeover could raise electric rates $3 to $4 a month and cost the industry $11 billion a year but would create thousands of jobs and yield up to $140 billion in health benefits by 2016.
An industry group sees things differently. The rules would cost an estimated $100 billion by 2015, said Lisa Camooso Miller of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. She said they'd also "cause significant job losses in a number of states due to higher electricity prices and the retirement of coal-fueled power plants."