Three cheers for new mercury pollution standards [View all]

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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.

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