The Salt Lake Tribune, Christopher Smith
Published April 1, 2004
WASHINGTON -- A bipartisan group of at least 40 U.S. senators will ask Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Mike Leavitt to withdraw a proposed rule to limit mercury pollution from smokestacks in a letter to be transmitted today to the former Utah governor.
The political heat comes as Leavitt appears before a Senate panel this morning to defend his agency's efforts to clean up the air.
EPA's plan to reduce mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants isn't the primary focus of the Senate Environment Committee's subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate Change and Nuclear Safety oversight hearing on air pollution programs. But Leavitt probably will be asked about recent revelations that utility lobbyists wrote much of the language in the proposed rule he is scheduled to finalize in December.
Charges the proposal heavily favors industry and will increase the risk of mercury poisoning through fish consumption by children and pregnant women spurred Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, to circulate a letter among colleagues asking Leavitt to withdraw the rule he announced shortly after joining the Bush administration and put forward a new rule based on agency science.
"Mercury is the last major toxic without a containment plan," Leahy told Leavitt last week in a budget hearing. "I would hope that you would not want this stain to remain on your legacy at EPA and for it to be said that America, on your watch, pulled back from effectively contending with the mercury problem."
A television ad showing a skull-and-crossbones morphing into a happy face on a child's lunch box is being sponsored by the Environmental Working Group and MoveOn.org, the latter which says 180,000 members have signed a petition opposing the EPA mercury plan.
And a broad-based coalition of environmental, religious, child health, labor, education and medical organizations has rallied members to bombard EPA with comments by the April 30 deadline, using Clinton administration EPA boss Carole Browner as their figurehead.
"There have been at least 200,000 letters submitted so far," said Karen Perry of Physicians for Social Responsibility. "Most of the comments are that this program is not going to sufficiently protect public health, and children's health in particular."
Environment Committee Chairman Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., called Browner the "ultimate hypocrite" for failing to issue any mercury regulations during her tenure.
"Administrator Leavitt concluded that the Browner approach was both inappropriate and unnecessary and instead proposed a standard that is more flexible, cost-effective and will achieve nearly twice the level of reductions over time," he said in a statement.
Last month, Leavitt called for additional EPA analysis of the "market-oriented incentive" plan that includes key sections identical to a memo from utility industry lobbyists. It would allow utilities to either reduce mercury from their plants or buy pollution "credits" from utilities that install anti-mercury technology.
The plan will cut the amount of mercury going into the atmosphere by 70 percent by 2018, according to EPA. Opponents counter there is no scientific evidence to support that claim and "hot spots" of mercury pollution will still remain.
But Scott Segal of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a coalition of utilities, said: "The acid rain experience shows that the highest emitting facilities had the greatest reductions, turning the critics' belief in so-called hot spots on its head."
csmith@sltrib.com
Bush Administration Mercury Proposal
EPA Proposal Language
Page 4661: "While section 112(d) mandates regulation of all HAP emissions based on the emissions limitations achieved by similar sources, section 112(n) calls for regulation of Utility Unit HAP emissions as EPA determines is 'appropriate and necessary after considering the results of the study' of public health hazards reasonably anticipated to occur from those Utility Unit HAP emissions."
Industry Memo Language
Page 3, 9/4/2003: "While section 112(d) calls for regulation of all major sources of of HAPS based on the emissions limitation achieved by similar sources, section 112(n) calls for regulation of power plant HAP emissions only insofar as it is "appropriate and necessary after considering the results of the study [of health risk]' required by this subparagraph, even though virtually all power plants are major sources."
EPA Proposal Language
Page 4661: "Congress provided EPA with distinct regulatory authority to address HAP emissions from Utility Units 'because of the logic of basing any decision to regulate on the results of scientific study and because of the emission reductions that will be achieved and the extremely high costs that electric generators will face under other provisions of the new Clean Air Act Amendments.' " 136 Cong. Rec. E3670,E3671 (November 2, 1990) Statement of Cong. Oxley
Industry Memo Language
Page 3, 9/4/2003: "Congress provided EPA with distinct regulatory mandate for power plant HAPS 'because of the logic of basing any decision to regulate on the results of the scientific study and because of the emission reductions that will be achieved and the extremely high costs that electric generators will face under other provisions of the new Clean Air Act amendments." A&P Cong. Record E3670,E3671
EPA Proposal Language
Page 4661: "Congress authorized EPA to consider a wider range of control alternatives for the utility sector than the source-by-source approach EPA has prescribed in standards for other source categories under the traditional section 112(d) MACT approach."
Industry Memo Language
Page 4, 9/4/2003: "(Rather,) section 112(n) confers discretion on EPA by permitting it to develop alternative control strategies for emissions from electric utility stream generating units rather than forcing power plant HAP regulation into the rigid technology-based framework of section 112(d)."
Source: Office of U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont
