Trump EPA to Ease Limits on Mercury Emissions From Coal Plants
https://www.ewg.org/release/trump-epa-e ... oal-plants
Despite bipartisan opposition in Congress, and from environmentalists and the entire electric utility industry, the Environmental Protection Agency today is expected to dramatically weaken federal air pollution standards the agency’s own scientists had estimated would prevent thousands of heart and asthma attacks, and deaths, each year.
The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, enacted in 2011, during the Obama administration, required electric utilities that burn coal and oil to install technologies to cut emissions of mercury and other heavy metal air pollutants, including arsenic.
Utilities estimated the cost of the pollution-trapping equipment at around $18 billion. But it was money well spent: The rule had an almost immediate impact on air quality with a 70 percent drop in mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.
In December, members of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board, most of whom are Trump appointees, slammed Administrator Andrew Wheeler for ignoring “established science” in his move to roll back the mercury rule, the Post reported in December.
Repeal of the mercury rule was on the wish list that Robert Murray, founder of the nation’s largest privately owned coal mining company and one of President Trump’s biggest backers, gave the White House just weeks after Trump’s inauguration. Before joining the Trump administration, EPA chief Wheeler was a highly paid coal industry lobbyist whose clients included Robert Murray and Murray Energy.
