Mercury Pollution Rules Will Result in Jobs, Fewer Lives in Jeopardy, Says EPA's Jackson

The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS)—the first to protect American families from power plant emissions of mercury and pollutants such as arsenic, acid gas, nickel, selenium, chromium, and cyanide—were announced today by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, as she stood on a podium at Children’s Medical Center in Washington, D.C., accompanied by medical professionals who hailed the new safeguards.

Jackson described 2011 as “an historic year for environmental protection,” based on the establishment of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards and the final Cross-State Air Pollution Rule.

She said that the standards would slash hazardous emissions by relying on widely available, proven pollution controls that already are in use at more than half of the nation’s 1,100 coal-fired power plants.

The EPA estimates that the new safeguards will prevent as many as 11,000 premature deaths and 4,700 heart attacks a year. Mercury has been shown to harm the nervous systems of children exposed in the womb, impairing thinking, learning, and early development;  other pollutants that will be reduced by these standards can cause cancer, premature death, heart disease, and asthma.

What’s more, according to the agency, for every dollar spent to reduce pollution from power plants, the American public will see up to $9 in health benefits. The total health and economic benefits of the MATS could total as much as $90 billion annually. Albert A. Rizzo, M.D., national volunteer chair of the American Lung Association, and pulmonary and critical care physician in Newark, Delaware, said, “Our nation has waited a long time for this day to come….From coast to coast, people will be breathing a little easier with these standards.”

EPA Administrator Jackson also lauded the economic benefits of the new MATS: “The increased demand [for safeguards] will mean increased business for America, because American businesses lead the way in pollution control,” she said at the Clean Air Event. 

She thanked the head of her office, Gina McCarthy, “and all EPA employees [for] staying up late to review” more than 900,000 public comments that helped inform the final standards—noting that part of this feedback encouraged the agency to ensure that its requirements focused on readily available and widely deployed pollution control technologies, that are not only manufactured by U.S.-based companies, but also support short-term and long-term jobs.

The EPA estimates that manufacturing, engineering, installing and maintaining the pollution controls to meet these standards will provide employment for thousands, potentially including 46,000 short-term construction jobs and 8,000 long-term utility jobs.

Power plants are the largest remaining source of several toxic air pollutants, and are responsible for half of the mercury and over 75 percent of the acid gas emissions in the United States. However, many coal-fired power plants already deploy pollution control technologies that will help them meet the standards.  In fact, just this week, the Illinois office of the EPA told The Associated Press that the state was ready to comply with the new mercury standards. The volume of mercury and mercury compounds emitted by Illinois' 23 power plants has been reduced by 44 percent, from 2008 through 2010—from a combined 4,482 pounds to 1,984 pounds, according to EPA data—partly due to a state rule adopted four years ago. Several plants already meet or exceed the goal of reducing emissions 90 percent by 2015.

"We've had a lot of success in Illinois; we're very pleased," said Laurel Kroack, chief of the Illinois EPA's Bureau of Air. "A lot of [utilities] thought they would never get to 90 percent, but with a few tweaks, they got beyond it."

As part of the commitment to maximize flexibilities under the law, the standards are accompanied by a Presidential Memorandum that directs EPA to use tools provided in the Clean Air Act to implement the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards in a cost-effective manner that ensures electric reliability. For example, under these standards, EPA is not only providing the standard three years for compliance, but also encouraging permitting authorities to make a fourth year broadly available for technology installations, and if still more time is needed, providing a well-defined pathway to address any localized reliability problems should they arise.

“The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, which are being issued in response to a court deadline, are in keeping with President Obama’s Executive Order on regulatory reform. They are based on the latest data and provide industry significant flexibility in implementation through a phased-in approach and use of already existing technologies,” the EPA said in a release.

As is to be expected, the standards were not universally welcomed. Steve Miller, the CEO of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCE) lambasted the EPA, in an official statement: ““The EPA is out of touch with the hard reality facing American families and businesses. This latest rule will destroy jobs, raise the cost of energy and could even make electricity less reliable.

“Unfortunately,” he continued, “this new rule is likely to be the most expensive rule ever imposed on coal-fueled power plants which are responsible for providing affordable electricity. We will study the new rule carefully. If this final rule is as bad as the one EPA proposed earlier, Congress will need to step in. People’s jobs, their family budgets and their access to affordable electricity are at stake.”