Three cheers for new mercury pollution standards

[ProSense]

Three cheers for new mercury pollution standards

by Michael A. Livermore

Environmentalists and public health advocates have a reason to stand up and cheer: Finalized rules to cut down on mercury air pollution are set to be announced today by the EPA.

But economists can also feel good about this holiday-season gift of clean air: Two decades of agency analysis have found the EPA's new mercury standards for power plants to be overwhelmingly cost-benefit justified. With annual compliance costs around $11 billion, and health benefits estimated to be up to $140 billion per year, even the most hard-nosed bean counter should be feeling festive.

But that's only part of the story. This number doesn't even fully capture the benefits of the rule, because EPA's economic analysis does not include many of the risks of mercury pollution.

The EPA's analysis of mercury reduction benefits is limited to quantifying lost future earnings due to lower IQ. The idea here is that mercury, a neurotoxin, can cause development problems for in utero fetuses. To account for the cost of this risk, EPA places a price on wages lost because of lost IQ points.

-more-

http://www.grist.org/clean-air/2011-12-21-three-cheers-for-new-mercury-pollution-standards

[FSogol]

1. Why are we worried about pollution on Mercury? No one lives there.

Shouldn't we be worried about pollution on earth first?
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Um, Never mind.

[babylonsister]

3. lol! The mercury got ya, didn't it.

[great white snark]

4. DUzy!

[Cigar11]

2. Those darn Environmentalists ... /eom

[jtrockville]

5. Can't find anything at EPA.GOV

Lisa Jackson (EPA Administrator) will make a public announcement today at 2pm:
http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/C33FD4DAFB97796F8525796C006A3B04

Other than that, I find no mention of this on EPA's website. Maybe they're waiting to post it until Jackson makes the announcement?

edited to add:
HIP HIP, HOORAY!

[ProSense]

6. Republicans

have been fear mongering about the rule for several weeks.

Will the EPA’s mercury rule cause a wave of blackouts? No.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/will-the-epas-mercury-rule-cause-a-wave-of-blackouts-no/2011/12/20/gIQALEu88O_blog.html

[jtrockville]

7. vs EPA's mathematical models

Math is hard, right? We should just ignore EPA's analysis and go with what the Republicans fabricated out of whole cloth.

[jtrockville]

9. EPA.gov has links now

New release: http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/bd4379a92ceceeac8525735900400c27/bd8b3f37edf5716d8525796d005dd086!OpenDocument

Page for the new standards (with a link to the standards): http://www.epa.gov/mats/

Jackson's Blog on the standards: http://blog.epa.gov/blog/2011/12/21/cutting-mercury/

[HappyMe]

8. Great!

[MineralMan]

10. Many thanks to the Obama Administration!

Way to go!