----- forwarded message -----
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 12:19:59 -0700
From: Teresa Binstock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: A Plea to Scrap Mercury Emission Plan - slanted toward industry and is too
weak to protect public health
A Plea to Scrap Mercury Emission Plan
A bipartisan group says the Bush proposal is slanted toward industry and
is too weak to protect public health.
By Alan C. Miller and Tom Hamburger
LATimes Staff Writers
March 17, 2004
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-mercury17mar17,1,5598494.story
WASHINGTON -- A bipartisan group of senators, a former head of the
Environmental Protection Agency and health, labor and religious groups
urged the Bush administration Tuesday to withdraw its controversial
proposal to curb mercury emissions from power plants.
They said that the plan was too weak to protect public health and that
the internal process that produced it was so slanted toward industry
that the final rule would not survive legal challenge.
In a letter to EPA Administrator Michael O. Leavitt, Sen. James M.
Jeffords (I-Vt.), the ranking minority member of the Environment and
Public Works Committee, said the EPA had violated requirements calling
for agencies to review alternatives and disclose their analysis when
proposing a major regulation.
Jeffords also referred to the proposal's "gross inadequacies in
controlling mercury." He called on Leavitt to request an investigation
by the agency's inspector general "into the allegations of undue
industry influence in the rule-making process." He said it appeared that
EPA political appointees and White House officials had worked "to skirt,
if not directly violate, the law and rules of ethical behavior."
But an agency spokeswoman said Tuesday that work on the mercury rule was
ongoing and that no judgment "should be made until the rule is finalized
in December."
EPA officials said, at this point, they stand by their "cap-and-trade"
approach to regulating mercury, which creates market-oriented incentives
for coal-fired utilities to either clean their emissions or buy
"credits" from those that do.
"Our goal and our commitment remains the same: to reduce mercury
emissions by 70%," said Cynthia Bergman, the spokeswoman.
Leavitt said this week that he was directing his staff to undertake
additional studies and analysis of the mercury proposal, which was
announced in December, shortly after he took office. He said he
considered this part of the "normal process," which he suggested could
result in changes to the proposal.
He emphasized that the administration was the first to propose
regulations that would limit mercury emissions from power plants.
President Clinton's EPA administrator, Carol Browner, said the Bush
proposal "is fundamentally flawed. It can't withstand a legal test, and
it must be withdrawn."
Speaking at a news conference hosted by Physicians for Social
Responsibility, she said Bush administration officials "decided where
they wanted to go before they completed the analysis and then they
cooked the analysis to get to where the industry was willing to be. That
is not the way a regulatory process should operate."
Jeffords and Browner said they were largely responding to a Los Angeles
Times report Tuesday that disclosed that EPA political appointees had
bypassed agency professional staff and a federal advisory committee last
year to develop a mercury emissions rule preferred by the White House
and industry.
The Times also reported that EPA staffers said they were told not to
undertake routine economic and technical studies called for under an
executive order and requested by the advisory panel. Significant
language from utility lobbyists was included verbatim in the proposal.
Also Tuesday, Sens. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Olympia J. Snowe
(R-Maine) reiterated an earlier plea to scrap the EPA's proposed rule.
They have collected nearly three dozen signatures on a letter urging
Leavitt to submit a new proposal.
Critics say the EPA should regulate mercury under the provisions of the
Clean Air Act, which call for much steeper and earlier emissions
reductions than the agency has proposed.
Christie Whitman, who headed the agency last spring -- when EPA staffers
say they were told to forgo the normal analysis of the mercury proposal
-- said Tuesday that she supported Leavitt's decision to order new
studies. He has the option of publishing the findings before the
deadline for public comment and well before the final rule is enacted,
she said.
Still, Whitman said, "ideally you have the underlying analysis when you
go out with a rule." She reiterated that she never requested that her
staff not produce its normal analysis or skew the data and, had she
known that was happening, "I would have stepped in."
Further support for Leavitt's approach came from a powerful Senate ally.
Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Environment and Public
Works Committee, believes that "this controversy is testament to the
length environmentalists will go to politicize the normal workings of
government," said a spokesman for Inhofe. He also said the plan had
undergone extensive review, "so it is a stretch to say it has not been
analyzed."
A recent study found that about 60,000 children a year could suffer
learning disabilities from being exposed to mercury while in the womb.
That can happen when pregnant women eat fish from waters contaminated by
the mercury emitted from power plants.
But coal and utility executives warn that overly aggressive regulation
of the nation's 1,100 coal-fired plants could seriously damage those
industries as well as the nation's economy.
A spokesman for coal-fired utility companies said Tuesday that
withdrawing the current mercury proposal would create unnecessary delay
and undercut the spirit of the proposal's public-comment period that
allows for more research and study.
Scott Segal of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council suggested
that Browner's criticism of the administration was unwarranted,
particularly because her record on regulating mercury from power plants
was marked by delay.
Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times
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