Bush to Permit Trading of (mercury pollution) Credits to Limit Mercury

[rodeodance]

The WH called it the "Clean Air Mercury Rule,"!!!


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/14/politics/14mercury.html?th

March 14, 2005
Bush to Permit Trading of Credits to Limit Mercury

By FELICITY BARRINGER

WASHINGTON, March 13 - The Bush administration this week will propose the first federal controls on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. The new rule will abandon the Environmental Protection Agency's original tilt toward a remedy favored by most environmental groups in favor of a system of tradable pollution allowances that is more congenial to industry.........


Under the rule, some utilities will be able to buy allowances rather than cleaning up emissions. Environmentalists and some state officials have argued that this approach will lead to so-called hot spots posing significant risks to local populations. The administration has tended to favor trading of pollution allowances as a regulatory tool that it believes is both effective and less prone to legal challenge, pointing to the succes.........

....Felice Stadler, a mercury policy specialist at the National Wildlife Federation, was sharply critical when told on Sunday of the thrust of the new rule, saying that it was "the weakest air-toxics rule ever written for a major industry" by the E.P.A.

"This rule gives big energy companies an extra 10 years before being required to reduce their mercury air pollution," Ms. Stadler said. "To say we are disappointed is an understatement. This is an ill-conceived plan that puts the future of our children and natural places at risk."......

[leftchick]

1. he wants to destroy the world...

and he is succeeding. :(

[rodeodance]

3. and this from the WH who perports to care about embryonic stem cells

What a joke

[no_hypocrisy]

5. Don't abort fetuses. Poison them in utero. Ah, Christian love.

[LynnTheDem]

2. Another "Clean Skies", "Healthy Forests" bushit.

Afganistan; instead of using force to hunt down the war lords and Taleban, just HIRE THEM in the GOVERNMENT!

Instead of enforcing stricter security at our unguarded nuclear sites, let the nuclear site owners do their own "voluntary" enforcing!

Instead of keeping his temporary tax cuts as temporary for the top 1% wealthiest Americans which would fully fund social security into the 22nd century, cut SS benefits and pass the wealth onto the money managers!

Instead of enforcing the laws on mercury pollution, allow non-polluters and low-polluters to pass their "credits" on to high polluters so the high polluters can continue to highly pollute and poison Americans!

With bush, it's ALWAYS do ANYTHING that protects and enriches his HAVES & HAVE-MORES BASE, and fuck the little irrelevant American people.

[bklyncowgirl]

4. Yippee! Let's hear it for mercury poisoning.

Let's see if I understand this correctly.

If I'm running some decrepit old power plant that spewing mercury into the atmosphere, I get some sort of negative points from the government. Instead of having to clean up the plant, however, under this rule I can just swap the pollution credits that I've earned with a clean plant in another location or have bought from a clean utility and continue to poison everyone who lives near my plant or who catches fish in any body of water that connects to any body of water near my plant.

Is this a great country or what!

[ClintonTyree]

6. You got it...............

anything big business wants, big business gets. For a considerable amount of money "donated" to the RNC of course.

Big business then outsources their work force to third world countries and then incorporate off shore, thus avoiding any of that pesky "income tax" the rest of our are subject too. In fact, big business gets "Corporate Welfare", refunds on the taxes they DIDN'T pay, to.........to what? Stay in America in name only? Ah! I remember. They get those rebates so they can contribute MORE to the GOP coffers, thus continuing the downward spiral of employment and corporate spending in the United States.

What a great country America is! IF you happen to own a company that belches toxic waste into out environment.

[Mnemosyne]

11. Minamata unleashed!! n/t

[Thor_MN]

17. Not only that, you can get your customers to pay for the credits!!!

Not only do you get to increase your rates (since your cost of business has gone up) but you get the people that you are polluting to pay for your lack of compliance. What a bunch of suckers they are!!!

[Mr.Green93]

7. How is this different

from Kyoto and the trading of carbon credits?

[mordarlar]

8. I may be mistaken but i believe the Carbon problem is not a local problem

like Mercury will be. If one company is lower on Carbon DIOXIDE and another trades it will keep ATMOSPHERIC carbon levels the same. It is the atmosphere that is at risk with Carbon .

Mercury, on the other hand, will negatively affect the LOCALE where it is distributed. One area will become VERY dangerous, exchanging on the health of another.

[Mr.Green93]

13. Mercury is a global problem.

We may get some of of our pollution from China and India.

[Gman]

9. Trading credits is an objection to the Kyoto Protocol

but it's ok for Mercury emissions here at home. Down is up, up is down, black is white, white is black...

[Ian David]

12. Please tell me most of the Mercury is in the red states?

Of course, all the rest of us eat the same fish and cattle though, don't we?

[Mnemosyne]

10. Hypocrites!

Thanks for post rodeo.

There was propaganda shown on the Weather Channel a few weeks ago re: carbon emissions in Europe claiming they are using these kind of allowances.

The Lunatic has only just begun, to kill..

on edit>

So carbon credits are being used re: Kyoto? The Weather Channel made it sound as if it was sneaky.

I have a hard time concentrating some days, thanks to merc poisoning. Makes research take much longer and sometimes I miss things and forget where I read what or filed what. Thanks to all here at DU for helping refresh my memory when it crashes on me, it means so very much to me.

[chlamor]

14. Carbon Trading=Less Stable Climate=Economic Apartheid=World Bank Scam

Critics charge that carbon trading is a smokescreen. At best, it is designed to attain “carbon neutrality”—representing no net growth in emissions for a country or industry, but doing so cheaply. At worst, it may make the warming climate even less stable, while robbing the poor of their rights.

Soumitra Ghosh, who works with forest workers in India, worries that such carbon trading will only further global inequality. It has the potential to set up a system, he says, "wherein the poorest and darkest-skinned pay the highest price— with their health, their land, and, in some cases, with their lives — for continued carbon profligacy by the rich.”

<snip>

The World Bank's involvement

Foremost among those set to profit from carbon trading is the World Bank -- also a major financier of fossil fuel developments.Here, the World Bank saw opportunity. One leaked document exposed World Bank plans to profit handsomely by charging a five percent commission on carbon transactions, in a self-appointed role as a broker between Northern and Southern governments and industries. (This “commission”— which they now claim is merely to cover their costs — will be closer to 8 or 10 percent.) With a potential market in CO2 that could reach $2 billion by the end of 2005, the World Bank noted in this memo, it could quickly earn $100 million in one year — and that was just for starters.

<snip>

The Bisasar Road dump is emblematic of the sort of global apartheid carbon trading encourages, allowing Northern governments to profit from over-use carbon in the North while forcing the poorest and darkest skinned in the South to pay with their health and their lives. Worse, because there are no limits on greenhouse gas emissions in the developing world, the sort of emissions trading being proposed by various CDM actors could create perverse incentives for greater inefficiencies – such as allowing more dumps to be built without methane capture as part of their design in order to lure potential carbon traders – and higher overall greenhouse gas emission as a result.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11893

[mtnester]

15. This worked so well for wetlands preservation

I guess he thought mercury poisoning would benefit too

<SARCASM OFF>

[More Than A Feeling]

16. Trading allowances is wonderful system for resolving

environmental problems in the most efficient way.

Unless the efficient amount of pollution is zero, or it creates the hot spots mentioned in the article.

Only Bush could take a good solution and turn it into a terrible one.