A federal court has overturned mercury pollution limits that the Bush administration imposed on power plants last year, saying the Bush standards disregarded laws in order to create standards that favored the power industry.
The unanimous ruling issued Friday by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., dismantled the Environmental Protection Agency program that allowed power plants to avoid installing the best available mercury reduction technology by purchasing pollution “credits” from plants that did install the technology.
This program, the three-judge panel found, could have ended up creating mercury “hot spots” in areas where power plants bought credits instead of cleaning up their emissions.
Mercury emitted into the air, as it is by coal-fired power plants, turns into methylmercury its most toxic form when it mixes with water, which happens when mercury emissions are deposited into lakes, rivers and other bodies of water. Humans are exposed to methylmercury through water, often by eating contaminated fish.
Last year the National Academy of Sciences estimated that 60,000 newborns could be at risk of developing some level of learning disabilities because their mothers had been exposed to mercury during pregnancy. The judges compared the EPA to the impulsive Queen of Hearts from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” saying the agency ignored federal environmental laws, choosing instead to follow the dictates of the coal industry.
Coal-fired power plants are a polluting, outdated method of energy generation, but that doesn’t preclude these plants from operating as cleanly as technology allows.
The Bush administration was wrong to insist that buying credits was an acceptable alternative to cutting emissions of this hazardous toxin. Fortunately, this ruling is a sign that the president’s mad tea party with the nation’s environmental laws is nearing its end.
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