CPR Scholars and Staff Call on EPA to Abandon Proposed Attack on Mercury Rule
One of the most successful environmental regulations in U.S. history is under attack from the Trump EPA – and its demise might be accomplished by shady bookkeeping. That is the conclusion of comments filed by Center for Progressive Reform Member Scholars and staff on April 17.
Since it was issued in 2011, the Mercury and Air Toxics Standard (MATS), which establishes rigorous technology-based standards to limit hazardous air pollution from fossil-fueled power plants – has reduced electric utilities' emissions of neurotoxic mercury by 81 percent. Significantly, the rule has achieved these reductions at less than a third of its projected costs while delivering public health savings estimated at billions of dollars each year.
The attack has come in the form of a proposal to undo what is known as the "appropriate and necessary" finding that undergirds the rule. In the provision of the Clean Air Act that authorized the MATS rule, Congress included a special requirement that EPA first find that controlling electric utilities' emissions of these pollutants would be "appropriate and necessary," a precondition the Obama administration had formally met. The Trump EPA now claims that the Obama administration's finding was based on a flawed analysis and seeks to …
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