Jonathon Berman, jonathon.berman@sierraclub.org
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, President Biden’s EPA announced a proposal to reverse the Trump Administration’s decision eliminating the “appropriate and necessary” finding for regulating mercury and other hazardous air pollution from power plants. The move comes after an executive order signed by President Biden last year to review the Trump-era rollback and develop a new proposal.
The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), finalized in 2012, limits hazardous pollutants like mercury, arsenic, and hydrochloric acid. EPA estimated MATS would prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths per year. In 2020, the Trump Administration’s EPA, led by former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, undermined the standard by eliminating the “appropriate and necessary” finding, dismissing the standards’ enormous public health benefits as insufficient to justify their cost to polluters.
Today’s proposal takes Americans’ health into account by including health improvements and other public benefits in its cost-benefit analysis.
In response, Patrick Drupp, Deputy Legislative Director for Climate and Clean Air released the following statement:
“With today’s announcement, President Biden’s EPA is taking a critical first step in protecting communities – in particular, communities of color – from dangerous, toxic pollution from coal plants. Communities across the country continue to be saddled with poor air quality. As a result, our families – and especially our children and the elderly – have been burdened with skyrocketing cases of asthma, heart attacks, and premature deaths.
“President Biden’s EPA must now strengthen the MATS rule. No amount of toxic pollution is acceptable in the air we breathe, especially when there are feasible, cost effective means of protecting public health.”
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