Obama EPA Poised to Finalize First Rule to Reduce Toxic Air
Pollution from Coal-Fired Power Plants
Charleston Gazette
15 December 2011
By Ken Ward Jr.
It’s coming down to the wire for the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency to finalize the first-ever limits on the emissions of toxic
air pollutants from coal-fired power plants. NPR’s Elizabeth
Shogren explains:
More than 20 years ago, Congress ordered the Environmental
Protection Agency to regulate toxic air pollution. It’s done that
for most industries, but not the biggest polluters — coal and
oil-burning power plants.
The EPA now plans to change that later this week, by setting new
rules to limit mercury and other harmful pollution from power
plants.
… When President George W. Bush took office, the power industry
persuaded his EPA to adopt soft limits on mercury, but federal
courts said that regulation was too weak, so it never went into
effect.
Now, the court has set a deadline of Friday for the EPA to issue a
new rule. The language the EPA wants would require quick action,
stating that within three years, power plants that burn coal would
have to cut more than 90 percent of the mercury from their
exhaust.
They’d also have to slash arsenic, acid gases and other pollutants
that cause premature deaths, asthma attacks and cancer. But even
now, some power companies have been furiously fighting the EPA’s
rule — especially its deadlines.
We’ve written about these rules — and the backlash against them by
the local powers that be in coal country – before here, here
and here. Earlier this week, the State Journal’s great
reporter, Pam Kasey, had a local update on the story.
Unfortunately, the headline probably overstated the case, perhaps
leading people to again not understand that these AEP plants in
West Virginia were going to close anyway, with or without the EPA
rule. Pam’s story explains the situation more clearly:
In West Virginia, AEP has said it would shut down Appalachian
Power Co.’s 1,105-MW Philip Sporn plant in Mason County and 439-MW
Kanawha River plant in Kanawha County, along with Ohio Power Co.’s
713-MW Kammer plant in Marshall County. The plants represent more
than 2,200 megawatts of coal-fired generating capacity in the
state and about 240 jobs.
They accounted for about 7 percent of coal burned for power in the
state in 2010 — not all of which is West
Virginia coal. However, because they are old and inefficient, they
accounted for only about one-tenth of one
percent of West Virginia generation, according to the Energy
Information Administration.
Asked whether these old plants wouldn’t be closing anyway,
Appalachian Power Co. spokeswoman Jeri Matheney said they would,
but not all together and so quickly.
And Pam did something much of the rest of the West Virginia media
refuse to do … She explained the public health benefits of EPA’s
proposal:
Mercury is a neurotoxin to which fetuses and children are
particularly susceptible, while other targeted emissions cause
cancer, chronic and acute respiratory disorders, and other
illnesses.
The rule will require expensive upgrades to or installations of
new emissions controls by Jan. 1, 2015, at an estimated 1,200
coal-fired units and 150 oil-fired units at 525 power plants.
When the agency issued its proposed rule in March, it estimated
the 2016 cost of compliance at $10.9 billion. The 2016 benefits —
realized primarily through 6,800 to 17,000 premature deaths
avoided but also through the avoidance of 11,000 non-fatal heart
attacks, more than 300,000 cases of respiratory illness including
aggravated asthma and acute and chronic bronchitis, and 850,000
days of missed work — came to $59 billion to $140 billion.
My buddy Jim Bruggers at the Courier-Journal has recently
reported:
Environmentalists are getting word that the White House may relax
the EPA’s planned new rules on mercury and other toxic chemicals.
“We are informed reliably that the White House Office of
Management and Budget, at the behest of the coal-burning electric
power industry, is now pushing the EPA to weaken its mercury
pollution control requirements in its upcoming toxic pollution
rule for power plants,” reports longtime clean air advocate Frank
O’Donnell. “Power companies could emit almost 20 percent more
mercury under the dirty power industry scheme being promoted by
OMB bean counters.”
It’s worth remembering that, back in September, President Obama
personally blocked EPA from implementing new regulations to reduce
smog …