Acting Environmental Protection Agency administrator Andrew Wheeler’s proposal for the agency to ignore the tens of billions of dollars in public health benefits provided by the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) is a shameful betrayal of the Clean Air Act that will put the health of tens of thousands of people in danger. Even worse, his decision to risk our health is to help a handful of coal industry executives who foolishly believe they can compete with cheap, clean energy technologies like solar and wind despite virtually every economic indicator pointing in the opposite direction. As a mom and a clean air advocate, I’m outraged.
Congress was clear in its 1990 Clean Air Act Amendment that the EPA must study and address the dangerous health consequences of mercury and other air pollutants from power plants in its rulemakings. Wheeler’s recent proposal, however, is doing the opposite of what Congress intended by directing the EPA to ignore the health benefits of reducing additional pollutants that are cleaned up when pollution control technology is used to remove mercury from the emissions of dirty coal plants. This cooking of the books is designed to hide the full benefits of clean air protections and help polluters make a case against stronger safeguards.
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Instead of acknowledging the full benefits of MATS through rigorous analyses and expert advice, Wheeler’s proposal intentionally excludes the benefits of reducing other pollutants that are linked to heart attacks, asthma attacks, and strokes, and that naturally get swept up with mercury and other air toxics through pollution control technologies. In lieu of a comprehensive assessment, the proposal is telling the EPA to dramatically narrow its analysis into the emissions reductions of MATS to only mercury and other listed toxics, while ignoring the other clear benefits of reducing air pollution generally.
To Wheeler, this rollback isn’t about following the Clean Air Act -- it’s about returning political favors to his former employers. Electric utilities and power plant operators required to comply with MATS have forcefully asked Wheeler not to weaken or impede the policy because they’ve already paid for the pollution control equipment and have no way of recouping their costs. Doctors and medical scientists, who are at the forefront of studying the effects of mercury on human health, have repeatedly told the EPA how important the standards are to protecting America’s most vulnerable populations, like pregnant women, children, and seniors with ailments. And elected leaders -- from both parties -- have routinely assailed any effort to attack MATS since the majority of the public supports its health benefits.
To top it all off, the standard has done its job, and it works! Almost every coal plant in the U.S. has already complied with MATS. As a result, mercury emissions from power plants -- our nation’s single biggest source of mercury pollution -- fell a jaw-dropping 82 percent from 2011 to 2017.
Why did Wheeler make the proposal then? Politics. Only a handful of coal industry billionaires, who are coincidentally major Trump administration supporters, have asked for MATS to be repealed -- one of whom is a former employer of Wheeler. Given that the costs of MATS to utilities are much lower than what the EPA originally estimated, the only reasonable explanation for the proposal is that Wheeler is cooking the books to help his former boss and a small group of coal barons. They are willing to risk the health of tens of thousands of people to prop up their declining industry, which can no longer compete with clean, renewable energy.
This is affront to Congress’s intent in passing the Clean Air Act, to the EPA’s mission, and to the rule of law. There is no excuse for what Wheeler is doing, and we will fight against it. TAKE ACTION: Protect our air from toxic mercury!