Mercury Follies: The Administration’s Plan Puts Our Children at Risk

Carol Browner

An interview with Carol Browner, former Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Background: On December 3, 2003, news accounts reported that the Environmental Protection Agency is considering a plan to relax the requirements to reduce toxic mercury emissions by regulating them under a less stringent section of the Clean Air Act. The EPA is under a legal deadline to announce a proposal to regulate mercury by mid December.

1. Why should EPA worry about mercury emissions?

Browner:

Mercury is one of the most potent health threats in the environment, posing particular risks to children and developing fetuses. The National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that even at low doses prenatal and early childhood exposure to mercury can cause developmental delays and even permanent brain damage in children. A recent National Academy of Sciences report found that 60,000 children born each year in the United States are at risk from exposure to mercury.

Mercury is particularly dangerous because it accumulates and persists in the environment. Once released into the air from smokestacks mercury is deposited in lakes and streams and then accumulates in the fatty tissue of fish and wildlife, which can be consumed by humans. In 2001 mercury contamination forced 44 states to issue fish advisories warning consumers to limit consumption of fish from lakes, rivers, and streams. According to EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory data Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and West Virginia currently have the highest mercury air emissions in the country.

2. What are the sources of mercury?

Browner:

Power plants are responsible for 34 percent of the total mercury emitted. Mercury pollution is produced from municipal and medical waste incinerators, from melting of iron and steel that is contaminated with mercury-containing switches, and as a by-product of chlorine manufacturing.

3. Is it possible to regulate mercury?

Browner:

Coal-fired power plants are the only major unregulated source of mercury air pollution. Several of the other major sources of mercury have already been controlled. Mercury controls for incinerators have reduced their emissions by as much as 90 percent. These reductions have been achieved under a section of the Clean Air Act which requires the installation of the “maximum achievable control technology” or the MACT standard.

In 1998 EPA reported to Congress that mercury emissions from power plants were toxic and that they were significant and needed to be addressed. In 2000 EPA made a legal finding that hazardous air pollutants, including mercury, from coal-fired power plants should and would be regulated. EPA is now required to announce a proposal to regulate mercury under the MACT provision of the Clean Air Act by December 15 of this year.

4. What is the effect of EPA’s current proposal as compared with current law?

Browner:

Now, rather than propose a requirement that the coal-fired power plants install the “maximum available control technology” as the Clean Air Act requires for all toxics, the Administration is proposing to use a provision of the Clean Air Act never before used to regulate toxics and setting a level of reductions for mercury emissions far below what the Clean Air Act toxic provisions would require.

Using the MACT provisions of the Clean Air Act would achieve at least a 90 percent reduction in mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants by 2008. The Administration’s proposals suggest only a 30 percent reduction. The result: more toxic mercury pollution in the air than the law allows. Moreover the Administration’s proposal would leave some communities with more mercury than others. Rather than require all mercury-emitting power plants to address both the localized and transboundary effects of their mercury emissions, the Administration would allow plants to buy pollution credits and continue emitting at current levels which means some communities would experience no mercury reductions at all.

5. Don’t so-called “cap and trade systems” enjoy broad support?

Browner:

Market based systems that allow trading of pollution credits have been proven to be very effective tools in reducing certain types of pollution. However, they do not work in all situations. Some pollutants, like mercury, not only travel distances from the original source, but leave significant pollution that stays right in the community where it is generated. The Administration’s cap and trade system does not require facilities to address these localized effects of its mercury emissions. Instead, a facility could buy a credit from another facility hundreds of miles away and continue its current level of mercury emissions unabated. Some communities would bear the burden of increased toxic pollution while others are cleaned up.

6. Is the science clear about the risks of mercury exposure?

Browner:

The dangers of mercury exposure are well known and documented. Numerous peer reviewed studies have concluded that mercury must be controlled. The National Academy of Sciences – the nation’s premiere science policy body – conducted an 18 month review of mercury science and found that mercury in the environment poses a significant hazard to public health. The Academy found that more than 60,000 newborn children are at risk of neurological development problems due to mercury overexposure in the womb. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that one in twelve women have unacceptably high levels of mercury in their blood. In June of this year the FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives recommended that the World Health Organization lower its level for safety of methyl mercury in seafood by 50 percent.

Unfortunately, earlier this year EPA delayed the public release of a report on “America’s Children and the Environment,” in part because it documented the mounting evidence that mercury contamination poses increased risks to children.

7. How does this change in the proposed rules relate to the Administration’s proposal pending in Congress to rewrite the Clean Air Act of 1990?

Browner:

The Administration has sent its “Clear Skies” proposal to Congress, an amendment to the Clean Air Act of 1990, that would delay and weaken requirements for coal-fired power plants to reduce their emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury. The Administration, facing significant public criticism, has attempted to defend its proposal as an improvement over current law, despite numerous studies showing otherwise. But by weakening the current regulatory program the Administration is creating their own justification for their argument that its legislative proposal on mercury is as good as current law.

8. Who benefits from these weakening changes?

Browner:

Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of mercury emissions in the United States. Utilities have vigorously lobbied to stall regulation and weaken control requirements. Unfortunately, once again, the worst polluters benefit while the public – and our children in particular – lose.