EPA Acts to Make Air Cleaner
New rules force oil-, coal-fired power plants to lower
pollutants periling health
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
22 December 2011
By Don Hopey
In one of its most significant initiatives in 20 years, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency announced final health-based rules
Wednesday for controlling mercury, acid gases and other air toxics
from oil- and coal-burning power plants.
The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards will save 11,000 lives and
prevent 4,700 heart attacks and 130,000 childhood asthma attacks a
year by 2016, according to the EPA, while reducing respiratory
ailments, birth defects and cancers.
And, according to the Electric Power Generation Association of
Pennsylvania, while the new standards may contribute to the
retirement of eight to 10 small, old, coal-fired power plants in
the state, it likely will not cause any power blackouts and should
open the way for development of more natural gas-fueled power
plants.
The first national emissions controls on utilities will reduce
emissions of mercury -- a potent neurotoxin -- arsenic, chromium,
lead, nickel and acid gases from power plants by 91 percent. Every
dollar spent to reduce power plant pollution, the EPA said, will
result in up to $9 in public health benefits, and the total health
and economic benefits resulting from the long-awaited standards
could be as much as $90 billion annually.
"By cutting emissions that are linked to developmental disorders
and respiratory illnesses like asthma, these standards represent a
major victory for clean air and public health -- and especially
for the health of our children," EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson
said in Washington, D.C. "With these standards that were two
decades in the making, EPA is rounding out a year of incredible
progress on clean air in America with another action that will
benefit the American people for years to come."
Ms. Jackson said the toxics pollution controls could increase
utility bills by $3 to $4 a month for consumers. The rules might
also cause utilities to close some of the nation's oldest and
biggest polluting power plants.
The new standards were not welcomed by many in the utility and
coal industries.
Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating
Council, a coalition of utilities that lobbies on electric power
issues in Washington, D.C., and Steve Miller, president and chief
executive officer of the American Coalition for Clean Coal
Electricity, said the EPA's rules will increase the cost of power,
cause job losses, and have few health benefits.
The rules, however, were praised by environmental, health,
science, sportsmen's, investment, sustainable business and
religious organizations, and even some electric utilities. Some
called the rules "long overdo" and "monumental" and "historic" in
their positive impacts on public health, the environment and the
economy.
"As a result of the new standards, we will begin to see some
relief from the power plant pollution that harms our health," said
Deborah Brown, president and CEO of the American Lung Association
of Pennsylvania. "This action is a significant victory in the
fight for healthy air."
Bill McLin, president and CEO of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation
of America, a not-for-profit health organization advocating for
asthma sufferers, said the 20 million Americans with asthma,
including 6.7 million children, will breathe easier because of the
EPA's decision to control power plant emissions.
Coal-fired power plants are the largest sources of mercury,
arsenic and other hazardous air pollutants. After intense industry
lobbying, coal- and oil-fired electric power generators were
exempted from 1990 Clean Air Act regulations governing toxic air
emissions from other industrial operations.
Today, about 44 percent of the nation's more than 440 coal-fired
power plants continue to operate without any pollution controls
and are responsible for 99 percent of mercury emissions from the
electric power industry.
The new Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, or MATS, contain two
rules. The first establishes numerical limitations for mercury,
airborne particles or soot, hydrochloric acid and metals. The
second rule tightens limits that new coal-fired power plants must
meet for airborne particle, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides
emissions.
The new rules, based on more than 130 peer-reviewed scientific and
health studies, give power plants that don't use controls three
years to install the equipment, with a possible additional
one-year extension. In addition, the rules provide for
case-by-case extensions where necessary to ensure that electricity
supply reliability is maintained.
According to the EPA, the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards and the
Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which was issued earlier this
year, are the most significant steps to clean up pollution from
power plant smokestacks since the Acid Rain Program of the 1990s.
Combined, the rules annually could prevent up to 46,000 premature
deaths, 540,000 asthma attacks among children and 24,500 emergency
room visits and hospital admissions.
Power plant mercury controls already exist in 17 states, but not
in Pennsylvania, where a mercury rule was declared
unconstitutional by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2009.
A Natural Resources Defense Council report in July listed
Pennsylvania as having the second-worst toxic air emissions in the
nation, behind Ohio, and Pennsylvania's mercury emissions are
second to Texas. Mark Baird, a spokesman for GenOn, owner of 18
power plants in Pennsylvania, said the company wouldn't comment on
the rules until it has an opportunity to examine them in detail.
FirstEnergy, which owns four coal-fired power plants in
Pennsylvania, including Hatfield's Ferry power plant in Greene
County and Bruce Mansfield power plant in Shippingport, Beaver
County, also said it is reviewing the rules. When the rules were
proposed earlier this year, FirstEnergy estimated compliance costs
at $2 billion to $3 billion.
"Over the next few months we'll evaluate things and look at our
individual units to determine what they need to do to meet the
regulations," said Ray Evans, environment executive director for
FirstEnergy. "We have scrubbers on most all of the units but some
might need retrofits."
Mr. Segal, of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, and
Mr. Miller, of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity,
said the EPA's rules will also make electricity less reliable. And
just two months ago, Gov. Tom Corbett joined 10 other Republican
governors in signing a letter to President Barack Obama asking him
to withdraw the rules because of power supply reliability
concerns.
But most national studies don't support that blackout warning, and
Doug Biden, president of the Electric Power Generation Association
in Pennsylvania, a Harrisburg association representing power
producers statewide, said such an occurrence is very unlikely in
Pennsylvania.
Mr. Biden said he does expect eight to 10 coal-fired power plants
to close in the next few years, reducing Pennsylvania's power
output by 3,000 to 4,000 megawatts, from its current total output
of about 50,000 megawatts. He said he doesn't know which
individual plants might close.
"I do expect significant retirements of coal power plants, but I'm
not blaming the EPA's air toxics rules ...," Mr. Biden said. "When
you look at everything together, the new rules, historically low
natural gas prices and stubbornly high coal prices due to overseas
demand, all of that makes it very difficult for companies to
justify operation of small, older power plants."
Don Hopey: dhopey@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1983.