Cap 'n' Crunched

Bush's controversial mercury rule for power plants struck down by federal court

Posted at 9:57 AM on 08 Feb 2008

Bad news for the Bush administration: A federal appeals court on Friday struck down a U.S. EPA rule that would have let coal-fired power plants trade the right to emit mercury, a neurotoxin that contaminates waterways, accumulates in fish, and has been linked to nerve and brain damage, particularly in children. Environmentalists and public health advocates, among others, had wanted every coal plant to have to reduce its emissions of mercury, but in 2005 the Bush admin opted for a cap-and-trade system that would let dirtier plants buy the right to pollute from cleaner ones. (The cap-and-trade approach is widely accepted as a good way to tackle greenhouse-gas emissions because they affect the atmosphere as a whole; in contrast, mercury pollution has severe local effects, so communities near plants with high mercury emissions would get the short end of the stick.) The court said the EPA violated the Clean Air Act in 2005 when it implemented the rules, which exempted power plants from strict emissions controls. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by a number of states, enviros, and public health groups; they're all cheering today's ruling as a major victory.

sources: Reuters, Associated Press

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Comments: (5 comments)

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Bad Week To Be In The Coal Business

What a bummer for the polluting destroyers who make up the coal industry.

First the Bush Administration and the DOE pulled the plug on FutureGen, the phony "Clean" coal experiment which was mostly a way to launder money... our tax dollars in exchange for technology that has never proven to work. First they asked for 900 million per coal fired electric plant, then they said it was going to cost twice that - $1.9 billion, but everyone knew that really meant $2 billion, maybe 2 billion five. All for crappy technology that couldn't get the job done. Stick the fork in that scam.

Then a few days later, the Wall Street Crowd announced that they weren't going to finance any more dirty coal fired electric plants. With carbon mandates coming the profit is going out of that business and so too is the investments.

And now this latest hit for being the mercury poisoners that they have always been. Lame duck Bush is now too impotent and devoid of political capital to keep the con from being exposed.

I hate to kick anyone when they're down, but not in this case. RIght now is the time to step on the coal industry's neck and choke off their oxygen supply until they can't breathe anymore. After all, that's what they've been doing to all of us for the last hundred years or more. And that's what they were planning to do for the foreseeable future. But now they won't be allowed to.

Now that their lethal con job has been stopped here in the USA, it's time for us to help our fellow victims in China where they're opening a new super polluting, mercury-spewing coal-fired electric plant every single week. Let's find our common ground with Chinese citizens on the issue of eliminating coal as a fuel source and replacing it with clean, renewable energy.

Can we do that?

Yes we can! All we have to do is start.

by CreativeGreenius at 7:28 PM on 08 Feb 2008

Not quite there yet...

Now that their lethal con job has been stopped here in the USA,

I love your positive enthusiam, but let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet. It's not like they've stopped all plans to build coal plants in the U.S., nor is there any legislation (yet) whuch has been passed which will essentially stop coal plant construction. We may have reached a turnin' point, but we ain't there quite yet.

Let's keep hopin' though!

by Tasermons Partner at 7:46 PM on 08 Feb 2008

Stop Coal AND Nuclear

While we're burying the coal industry, let's not forget that the nuclear one is trying to make a comeback in the U.S. under the guise of being clean. What a joke! They've even enlisted former environmentalists, like a Greenpeace founder and the founder of Whole Earth Access, to shill for them. We need to be as strongly anti-nuke as we are anti-coal, or we'll just end up with another environmentally destruction source of energy.

by Wolverine at 1:06 PM on 09 Feb 2008

Trading nonsense

"The cap-and-trade approach is widely accepted as a good way to tackle greenhouse-gas emissions"

Widely accepted by who? Lobbyists? Barack fell for their line. Trading carbon or mercury, both bad ideas.

It hands responsibility for GHG climate crisis to hedge funds, now trading farm land creating an ethanol related farm land rush bubble. Just like the mortgage crisis bubble.

Stop this new boondoggle designed to enrich crooked inside traders. Simply pay homeowners, farmers, and businesses who invest in solar, wind, and biogas power 10 cents per kwh in subsidy for selling that non-GHG power into a smart grid.

Take the subsidies away from the biog energy companies and traders to fund this shift in energy policy. Let the green jobs start, and small business install all the new revolutionary energy devices and smart grid systems.

That's an economy stimulating energy policy.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 6:28 PM on 09 Feb 2008

amazingdrx

Draft a bill; get it introduced; gather co-sponsors.

Make it real.

Otherwise, it is just ranting on a blog.

by ce1907 at 12:58 AM on 10 Feb 2008

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