Cantwell: Bush Administration Plan to Weaken Clean Air Act Puts Public Health at Risk
Administration would Permit Increased Mercury Emissions; Senate Narrowly Fails to Overturn Harmful Measure
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) denounced the Bush Administration’s plan to exempt coal- and oil-fired power plants from parts of the Clear Air Act, and expressed her disappointment at the Senate’s failure to overturn the proposal. Issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on March 15, 2005, the new rule reversed a December 2000 finding by the EPA that mercury emissions by electric utilities are subject to Clean Air Act standards.
“Mercury is a dangerous neurotoxin, especially for children, so I am very disappointed that the Senate did not take a stronger stand in defense of public health,” said Cantwell, a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “Weakening the Clean Air Act is unacceptable.”
Accounting for more than 90,000 pounds of airborne mercury a year, pollution from electric utilities poses a threat to people, wildlife, and businesses, such as those within the fishing industry, that depend on clean air and water. Because of the Administration’s rule change, mercury emissions reductions will be delayed substantially. Under the previous rule, utilities would have been required to use “maximum available control technology” to reduce mercury emissions by 2008. The Administration’s new rule requires no reductions until 2018, and will not achieve the target 70 percent reduction until 12 years later.
Today, the Senate had an important opportunity to overturn the rule using the Congressional Review Act. The rarely used 1996 Congressional Review Act allows Congress to nullify Administrative rulemaking that Congress finds objectionable. The Leahy-Collins-Snowe legislation to reject the Administration’s flawed mercury controls rules failed narrowly, on a vote of 51-47.
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