New E.P.A. Plan Could Free Coal Plants to Release More Mercury Into the Air

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More mercury gives you more Reptillians. We have the Mad Hatter in the White House.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration proposed on Friday major changes to the way the federal government calculates the benefits, in human health and safety, of restricting mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants.

In the proposal, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a finding declaring that federal rules imposed on mercury by the Obama administration are too costly to justify.

It drastically changed the formula the government uses in its required cost-benefit analysis of the regulation by taking into account only certain effects that can be measured in dollars, while ignoring or playing down other health benefits.

The result could set a precedent reaching far beyond mercury rules. “It will make it much more difficult for the government to justify environmental regulations in many cases,” said Robert N. Stavins, a professor of environmental economics at Harvard University.
While the proposal technically leaves the mercury restrictions in place, by revising the underlying justifications for them the administration has opened the door for coal mining companies, which have long opposed the rules, to challenge them in court. The rules, issued in 2011, were the first to restrict some of the most hazardous pollutants emitted by coal plants and are considered one of former President Barack Obama’s signature environmental achievements.

In announcing the proposed rule, the E.P.A. said that the costs to industry in installing pollution controls ranged from $7.4 billion to $9.6 billion annually, while the health benefits of cutting mercury ranged from $4 million to 6 million annually. In other words, it said that the costs of the rule outweigh the benefits.

Among other things, the Obama administration calculations estimated that the rules would prevent 11,000 premature deaths not from curbing mercury itself, but from what is known as a co-benefit, the reduction in particulate matter linked to heart and lung disease that also occur when a plant reduces its mercury emissions. The Trump administration’s revised procedures would essentially ignore co-benefits and count only the direct potential benefits of cutting mercury.

In a statement, the E.P.A. said the cost of cutting mercury from power plants “dwarfs” the monetary benefits and argued that the current limits can no longer be justified as “appropriate and necessary” under the law.

The proposal, which the acting E.P.A. administrator, Andrew Wheeler, signed on Thursday, is expected to appear in the federal register in the coming weeks. The public will have 60 days to comment on it before a final rule is issued.

During his first year in office, President Trump signed executive orders declaring his intention to dismantle environmental rules. As his second year comes to a close, agencies have set the wheels in motion to weaken or repeal nearly a dozen restrictions on air and water pollution or planet-warming emissions of carbon dioxide, including a plan to reduce the number of waterways that are protected from pollutants and another making it easier for utilities to build new coal plants.

Reworking the mercury rule, which the E.P.A. considers the priciest clean-air regulation ever put forth in terms of annual cost to industry, would represent a victory for the coal industry and in particular for Robert E. Murray, an important former client of Mr. Wheeler’s from his days as a lobbyist. Mr. Murray, the chief executive of Murray Energy Corporation, personally requested the rollback of the mercury rule soon after Mr. Trump took office.

The acting Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Andrew Wheeler, after signing an order this month rolling back federal protections for waterways and wetlands.Cliff Owen/Associated Press

In a statement on Friday, Hal Quinn, president of the National Mining Association, praised the new rule, calling the mercury limits “perhaps the largest regulatory accounting fraud perpetrated on American consumers.”

Yet the E.P.A. move also had its detractors within the industry. The vast majority of utility companies have said the proposed changes are now of little benefit to them, because they have already spent the billions of dollars needed to come into compliance, and have urged the Trump administration to leave the mercury measure in place.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/28/clim ... tions.html
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: New E.P.A. Plan Could Free Coal Plants to Release More Mercury Into the Air

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Our city owned public utility (CPS Energy) is about to shutdown one of their coal burners and is on track to end coal usage. This shut down will leave us with one coal burner - the balance are natural gas and/or diesel. They continue to move to clean energy - wind or solar. They have no intention to be bullied into using coal by the dip shits in DC. They did just spend millions on a new replacement boiler for the remaining coal burner that will go on stream mid 2019.

FDT
"Being Republican is more than a difference of opinion - it's a character flaw." "COVID can fix STUPID!"
The greatest, most aggrieved mistake EVER made in USA was electing DJT as POTUS.

Re: New E.P.A. Plan Could Free Coal Plants to Release More Mercury Into the Air

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I wrote my congressman and senators. Template:
On Friday, the EPA proposed that the current rules on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants were "too restrictive". This proposal will soon be available for public comment in the Federal Register. I don't know if you are aware, but all freshwater fish in Massachusetts are under a mercury consumption advisory. This is a direct result of fallout from coal-fired power plants, and has a significant impact on the freshwater fisheries of Massachusetts and the rest of New England. This is a direct threat to the citizens of Massachusetts, especially women and children who may consume the fish, and reduces the value of the freshwater fishery in Massachusetts. This reduction in value also decreases the preservation and restoration value of our rivers and streams, and therefore has a direct economic impact on tourism, recreation dollars spent, and quality of life in our state. Please do whatever you can to re-implement and strengthen mercury emission regulations in the United States.
"...just smash your piano, and invoke the glory-beaming banjo!" ~Mark Twain

Re: New E.P.A. Plan Could Free Coal Plants to Release More Mercury Into the Air

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Here's sort of an update. If all power plants are replaced at the end of their natural lives by renewables and nukes, we could save us.
It shows that meeting the internationally agreed aspiration of keeping global warming to less than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels is still possible. The scientists say it is therefore the choices being made by global society, not physics, which is the obstacle to meeting the goal.

The study found that if all fossil fuel infrastructure – power plants, factories, vehicles, ships and planes – from now on are replaced by zero-carbon alternatives at the end of their useful lives, there is a 64% chance of staying under 1.5C.

In October, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the difference between 1.5C of warming and the earlier international target of 2C was a significantly lower risk of drought, floods, heatwaves and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.

Christopher Smith, of the University of Leeds, who led the research, said: “It’s good news from a geophysical point of view. But on the other side of the coin, the [immediate fossil fuel phaseout] is really at the limit of what we could we possibly do. We are basically saying we can’t build anything now that emits fossil fuels.”

--snp--

But he added: “If you don’t have a goal, you are not going to get anywhere. If you have a target that is really hard to achieve and you miss it slightly, that is better than wandering aimlessly into a future climate that is no good for anybody.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ange-study

Obligatory: FDT

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: New E.P.A. Plan Could Free Coal Plants to Release More Mercury Into the Air

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Don’t expect that to happen when we have people like this in charge.
Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday slammed U.S. President Donald Trump’s new pick to run the Environmental Protection Agency as a pro-business extremist, but harbored little hope of blocking his confirmation in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Trump nominated EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler to run the agency permanently last week. If confirmed, Wheeler would continue to push the Trump administration’s deregulatory and pro-fossil fuels agenda without the constant criticism over alleged mismanagement that plagued Wheeler’s predecessor Scott Pruitt.

A Washington insider with years of experience as a top aide to Republican Senator Jim Inhofe, a climate change doubter, Wheeler has been running the EPA since July, when Pruitt resigned in a flurry of criticism over his travel expenses and use of resources and staff for personal matters.

“Mr. Wheeler is certainly not the ethically-bereft embarrassment that Scott Pruitt proved to be,” Senator Tom Carper, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said in opening remarks at Wheeler’s confirmation hearing.

Carper, however, added: “Mr Wheeler’s environmental policies appear to be just as extreme as his predecessor’s.”

Wheeler’s opening remarks, which were briefly interrupted by shouting protesters, focused on what he called his work to reduce the regulatory burden on business while also protecting air and water quality for Americans.

Democrats have said they would press Wheeler during his confirmation hearing on his past lobbying, which includes work for underground coal giant Murray Energy – a vocal proponent of reduced environmental and safety regulation.

They are also likely to continue to needle Wheeler about his record so far at EPA, which has largely been a continuation of Pruitt’s moves to undo or weaken the Obama administration’s environmental regulations – including on power plant pollutant emissions.

Industry representatives and Republican lawmakers, however, have largely praised Wheeler for his deregulatory stance, arguing the EPA has for years hurt growth by imposing overly-burdensome requirements on businesses.

“He understands how the regulatory process works and the type of effort that is required to develop effective and legally defensible regulatory reforms,” said Jeff Holmstead, a partner at industry-focused law firm Bracewell and a former EPA air administrator.

Environmental groups, including Moms Clean Air Force – an organization that advocates for children’s environmental health – attended Wednesday’s hearing in protest.

Dominique Browning, a member of the group, wrote in a New York Times op-ed on Monday that Wheeler “should not be entrusted with protecting us from harm” and that his recent move to weaken mercury limits by downplaying their benefits was harmful.
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/01/us-dem ... extremist/
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: New E.P.A. Plan Could Free Coal Plants to Release More Mercury Into the Air

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Here is more on the Wheeler hearing
Andrew Wheeler, the former coal lobbyist chosen by President Donald Trump to serve as the next Environmental Protection Agency administrator, downplayed the threat of climate change at his confirmation hearing on Wednesday.

He refused to call the rapid warming of the planet a crisis. He repeatedly misrepresented his own agency’s findings about a rule to gut an Obama-era power plant regulation, inflating the emissions cuts the new proposal would mandate. He even mixed up two of the most important climate science reports to come out in the last three months, admitting he hadn’t fully read the report co-authored by researchers at his own agency.

“I believe climate change is a global issue that must be addressed globally,” Wheeler said. “I would not call it the greatest crisis, no sir.”

It was a brazen if not unexpected stance from the nominee to become the EPA’s 15th administrator. Wheeler isn’t new to the job: Last month, he became the longest-serving acting chief in the agency’s history, having taken over in July when former Administrator Scott Pruitt resigned in disgrace amid mounting scandals.

In November 2017, when he appeared before the Senate environment and public works committee to interview for the EPA’s No. 2 job, Wheeler said he believed “that man has an impact on the climate, but what’s not completely understood is what the impact is.”

That remark broke with the scientific consensus, almost universally accepted, that emissions from burning fossil fuels are the primary cause of the 1-degree Celsius temperature rise the planet has experienced since the pre-industrial era.

Since then, the realities of climate change have only become more tangible for millions of Americans, as record-breaking hurricanes and wildfires have killed thousands and caused unprecedented damage.

In October, the United Nations released a landmark determination that the world has until 2030 to halve global emissions or face catastrophic climate change. A month later, the federal government’s National Climate Assessment ― a congressionally mandated report issued by 13 agencies, including the EPA ― confirmed the findings and warned of cataclysmic damage to the United States economy and human health and “by 9°F (5°C) or more by the end of this century.”

In November, Wheeler admitted he hadn’t read the report, but still dismissed its findings and threatened to intervene in the drafting of the next National Climate Assessment.

During Wednesday’s hearing, Wheeler initially mistook the United Nations report for the National Climate Assessment. Asked about the latter, he said he “did not review the report before it came out,” and that he held just one briefing meeting with his career staffers. He said the partial federal government shutdown, now its fourth week, forced him to delay future briefings.

“They gave me a number of background info to read and we scheduled additional briefings on it for early January, but those have been postponed,” Wheeler said.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ep ... 2a21db1c11
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: New E.P.A. Plan Could Free Coal Plants to Release More Mercury Into the Air

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The number of lobbyists in charge of government is astounding. It used to work the other way around.

If the whole "swinging pendulum" of government (liberal vs conservative) is true, I am really worried about the next pendulum swing to the far-right/alt-right. The next generation of GOP is truly frightening.

However, I am pretty excited to see how far left the pendulum can swing after the circus leaves town.
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Re: New E.P.A. Plan Could Free Coal Plants to Release More Mercury Into the Air

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The good news is that they cannot stop coal plants from shutting down. A recent article said more had shut down in Turnips first two years than all of Obama's terms. Our local shutdown one of ours this month and in process of being gutted and equipment sold off, mostly overseas.

FDT
"Being Republican is more than a difference of opinion - it's a character flaw." "COVID can fix STUPID!"
The greatest, most aggrieved mistake EVER made in USA was electing DJT as POTUS.

Re: New E.P.A. Plan Could Free Coal Plants to Release More Mercury Into the Air

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Wino wrote: Thu Jan 17, 2019 10:40 am The good news is that they cannot stop coal plants from shutting down. A recent article said more had shut down in Turnips first two years than all of Obama's terms. Our local shutdown one of ours this month and in process of being gutted and equipment sold off, mostly overseas.

FDT
Send them to China, India, or Mexico so they can burn the coal without any pollution restrictions. Like when we outsourced our labor, we'll simply outsource our heavy energy consumption and import the finished products. That way we can keep our current standard of living.

https://www.eia.gov/coal/production/quarterly/

China has their own reserves, but Mexico and India are growing exports. I'm a little surprised at the amount the Netherlands buys considering the size of their country. They must process steel in that area of Europe.

https://www.eia.gov/coal/production/qua ... 7p01p1.pdf
Brian

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