On mercury pollution, Trump's EPA goes beyond industry requests

[babylonsister]

On mercury pollution, Trump's EPA goes beyond industry requests
It's a striking realization when Trump's EPA takes a position that is more pro-pollution than the position of polluters themselves.
Feb. 18, 2020, 11:15 AM EST
By Steve Benen


For much of the last few years, Donald Trump's administration has taken steps to ease rules on mercury pollution from power plants -- not simply as part of a general hostility toward environmental safeguards, but specifically to help the coal industry, which the president sees as a political ally.

What I did not expect, however, is for the Republican administration to go further down this road than even the industry expected or wanted. The Washington Post had a striking report on this yesterday.

For more than three years, the Trump administration has prided itself on working with industry to unshackle companies from burdensome environmental regulations. But as the Environmental Protection Agency prepares to finalize the latest in a long line of rollbacks, the nation's power sector has sent a different message: Thanks, but no thanks.

The article noted that Exelon, one of the nation's largest utilities, told the EPA that its effort to change a rule that has cut emissions of mercury and other toxins is "an action that is entirely unnecessary, unreasonable, and universally opposed by the power generation sector."

It's a striking realization when Trump's Environmental Protection Agency takes a position that is more pro-pollution than the position of polluters themselves.

We saw a similar dynamic nearly a year ago, when some of the world's largest auto manufacturers, whom Trump has tried to help by gutting emission standards, collectively told the administration it was going too far to make polluting easier. The president's agenda, the companies explained in June 2019, was bad for business and created "untenable" manufacturing instability.

more...

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/mercury-pollution-trump-s-epa-goes-beyond-industry-requests-n1138016

[Phoenix61]

1. It also opens them to liability issues and

class action lawsuits. Look at what happened to the tobacco industry and Purdue pharmaceuticals.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

2. Trump, fishing for kickbacks, makes fish deadlier for us.