The Obama Administration pushed the agenda forward in March that called on the EPA to require power plants using fuel oil or coal to reduce emissions of mercury and certain hazardous pollutants by 91 percent.
Today the EPA agreed to change its laws by approving the “Cross-State Air Pollution Rule.” The law should cut interstate ozone and fine particle pollution from coal-fired power plants emissions across 27 states by 2012. The affected states are largely mid-Atlantic states on the eastern seaboard, the mid West and the South, including Texas. Incidentally, many green wind power plants are making homes in these regions.
The reduction rule established by the EPA acknowledges a phenomena that has affected children and babies in utero for years. Back in 2001, it was acknowledged that environmental pollution contributed to birth defects such as heart disease and asthma. The argument has long been for the country to absorb the costs of lower emissions of dangerous and harmful particles into the air because the price financially and emotionally of raising a child with a preventable birth defect costs the state and federal government much more.
By 2016, the EPA estimates the costs of reducing emissions will hit the $11 billion mark. The new regulations set forth by the EPA are expected to raise electric bills by three or four dollars each month.
Healthwise, the new standards should play a factor in decreasing the number of deaths associated with 17,000 premature deaths each year. The coal fired power plants emit the largest amount of mercury into the environment all over the U.S. A Wall Street Journal article reported in March that coal-fired power plants emit 48 tons of mercury. Mercury toxins are responsible for neurological disorders in children, a fact reported by the GAO. coal-fired power plants also release particulate matter such as soot, sulfur dioxide gases that cause acid rain, and other toxic metals — pollution that has been linked to cancer, heart disease, asthma and bronchitis. Coal-fired power plants, argued Repower America, put millions upon millions of tons of carbon pollution into the atmosphere each year, leading to dangerous changes in our climate.
Coal plants currently account for over a quarter of the carbon pollution in the United States.
In approving the laws to reduce mercury emissions, the Obama Administration overturns a Bush policy that remained in effect even though government agencies fully disclosed a link between toxins in the environment and neurological disorders in children.
The new regulations on coal-fired power plants could shift the nation’s fuel needs in the direction of natural gas. Natural gas burns much cleaner and is currently the source of 23 percent of the nation’s electricity.
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Tags: Mercury, Mercury Pollution