The E.P.A.'s Review of Mercury Rules Could Remake Its Methods for Valuing Human Life and Health

[BeckyDem]

By Coral Davenport and Lisa Friedman

Sept. 7, 2018


WASHINGTON — When writing environmental rules, one of the most important calculations involves weighing the financial costs against any gains in human life and health. The formulas are complex, but the bottom line is that reducing the emphasis on health makes it tougher to justify a rule.

Last week the Trump administration took a crucial step toward de-emphasizing the life and health benefits in this calculus when the Environmental Protection Agency said it would rethink a major regulation that restricts mercury emissions by coal-burning power plants.

The 2011 mercury rule — based on decades of research showing that mercury damages the brain, lungs and fetal health — is among the costliest but most effective clean-air policies put forth by the Environmental Protection Agency. Utilities estimate they have spent $18 billion installing clean-air technology, and mercury pollution has fallen by nearly 70 percent.

Modifying the rule could have an impact far beyond any immediate concerns about the release of toxic mercury into the air and water. In fact, the re-evaluation fits into a far-reaching administration strategy to loosen environmental rules affecting countless other industries for years to come by adjusting the factors used to judge the benefits to human health that the rule has brought.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/climate/epa-mercury-life-cost-benefit.html

[lark]

1. drumpf is a murderer for profit.

If he can find a way to profit from anything, he'll gladly kill all the poor/ working class folks. Heck, he's already kidnapping, torturning, drugging and even murdering Hispanic children for profit, and now wants to add American children and their families to the list.

[BeckyDem]

2. I do not disagree since we see what he intended to accomplish from the beginning. Allow

him and all his cronies to live high for the short term and ignore all consequences, literally. It is the Republican Party as a whole even with these phony detractors who claim to hate him, they still support derregulating everything in their path.

[barbtries]

3. i guess their goal is a dystopia

where they're fine, safe, long-lived, and the rest of us toil until we die prematurely in a wasteland.

[BeckyDem]

4. Yea, its self imposed denial, no harm will come to them. Like climate change, they're going to

keep themselves safe from those consequences too. Greed can produce incredibly stupid people.

[barbtries]

5. it really can.

their absence of foresight is almost as shocking as their hypocrisy and sociopathy. i've been saying for a long time that greed will kill the human race but still always thought that it wouldn't be for millennia. i don't know anymore.

[BeckyDem]

6. I hear you. We don't know with any certainty. Obama was right to say recently that Trump

is the symptom not the main problem. The GOP have been using race baiting tactics and deregulating government protections for decades. It is the corruption within the election system, the money to control politicians and then legislation. Disheartening to read this morning.

Koch network unveils new super PAC as Republicans fight to hold majorities in Congress


The influential conservative Koch political network adds another campaign finance weapon to its arsenal, a new super PAC.
Americans for Prosperity Action is a sister organization to the nonprofit Americans for Prosperity, which describes its mission as fighting for less regulation, lower taxes and "economic prosperity for all."
"Americans for Prosperity has been a difference-maker supporting policy champions in tight races, and AFP Action is a new tool that will allow us to expand those efforts and make an even larger impact," said Bill Riggs, a spokesman for the PAC.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/10/koch-network-unveils-new-super-pac-as-fight-for-congress-heats-up.html?__source=twitter%7Cmain

[stuffmatters]

7. Checking off another deadly GOP-EPA move for their Koch Bros agenda

Justification is, of course, the product of their crackpot "academic/intellectual" machinery, just as Pedophile Pervert/forced birth slaver Kavanaugh(Garza) touts their insatiably cruel and inhumane policies.