Utilities say they’re against EPA rollback on mercury emissions
by Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis, Washington Post, Updated: February 17, 2020- 9:09 PM
For more than three years, the Trump administration has prided itself on working with industry to unshackle companies from burdensome environmental regulations. But as the Environmental Protection Agency prepares to finalize the latest in a long line of rollbacks, the nation's power sector has sent a different message:
Exelon, one of the nation's largest utilities, told the EPA that its effort to change a rule that has cut emissions of mercury and other toxins is "an action that is entirely unnecessary, unreasonable, and universally opposed by the power generation sector."
Kathy Robertson, a senior manager for environmental policy at the company, said the industry long ago complied with the rule.
"And it works," she said. "The sector has gotten so much cleaner as a result of this rule."
Despite a chorus of opposition from unions, business groups and electric utilities, the EPA is on the verge of completing its proposal as part of a broader effort to overhaul how the government calculates the health benefits of cleaner air. Coal executives have lobbied for it, arguing it represented one of the worst excesses of what President Donald Trump calls "the war on coal."
The agency plans to declare that it is not "appropriate and necessary" for the government to limit harmful pollutants from power plants, even though every utility in America has complied with standards put in place in 2011 under President Barack Obama. While it will technically keep existing restrictions on mercury in place, it means the government would not be able to count collateral benefits - such as reducing soot and smog - when it sets limits on toxic air pollutants.
It's a rollback that industry officials argue could open the door to new legal fights, prompt some plants to turn off their pollution controls and ultimately sicken more Americans - all so that the administration can rewire how the government weighs the costs of regulation.
"They've unsheathed an incredibly sharp sword," said University of Chicago professor Michael Greenstone, an energy and environmental economist. "And there's no reason that sword can't be used to roll back other regulations that have produced extraordinarily large benefits for American society."
The changes could give a boost to struggling coal companies, while hamstringing future efforts to limit mercury emissions from the nation's power plants.
The rule in question, known as the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), targets a powerful neurotoxin that can affect the IQ and motor skills of children, even in utero. Between 2006, when states began to curb mercury from coal plants, and 2016, when the Obama-era rule took full effect, emissions have declined 85 percent.
The Obama administration initially projected that the industry would spend between $7.4 billion and $9.6 billion each year to comply with the regulation, while society as a whole would save between $37 billion to $90 billion from the prevention of thousands of premature deaths and lost work days. Those estimates included not just lower mercury emissions but collateral benefits from reductions in soot and other smog-forming pollutants that contribute to asthma and other respiratory problems.
The power industry ultimately paid far less to comply. It spent about $18 billion between 2012 and 2018, or $3 billion annually.
The Trump administration has argued that it is inappropriate to count such "co-benefits" when considering the economic impact of regulation, saying Obama used creative math to justify burdensome new requirements.
"When you do a cost-benefit analysis, you should address the pollutant that's the subject of the regulation," EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a recent interview, adding that "98, 99 percent of the benefits were not for mercury."
The 2011 requirements did more to hasten the closure of coal-fired power plants than any other regulation adopted under Obama. Facing the first-ever limits on these pollutants, companies across the country chose to switch to natural gas or renewable energy rather than invest in costly new pollution controls.
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