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The Fine Print: How a Loophole in the ‘Clear Skies’ Bill Lets Power Plants Off the Hook for Their Mercury Emissions 2005-04-17 Fine_Print.pdf

Executive Summary

As the new home of Arizona PIRG's environmental work, Environment Arizona can be contacted with any questions regarding this report.

Power plants are the largest source of U.S. emissions of mercury, a bioaccumulative neurotoxin that poses serious health hazards even in minute amounts. Mercury is particularly harmful to the developing brains of infants and young children; mercury exposure can cause vision and hearing difficulties, developmental delays, lowered IQ, problems with memory, and attention deficits. While current law requires steep and swift reductions in power plant mercury emissions, the Bush administration’s “Clear Skies” bill would give power companies until 2018 before requiring specific action to reduce their mercury emissions. Even worse, a loophole in the fine print of the bill would exempt many of the nation’s power plant units from ever having to reduce their mercury emissions. This report uses Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data to examine the scope of this loophole and finds that it would allow many of the nation’s power plant units to continue releasing mercury into the air unabated.

Specifically, the “Clear Skies” bill (S.131) would exclude from regulation power plant units that emit 30 pounds or less of mercury per year, including units that are part of a multi-unit power plant that collectively emits more than 30 pounds of mercury per year. Moreover, the loophole could create a perverse incentive for power plants to reduce mercury emissions at individual units just enough for those units to fall under the threshold—and thus off the regulatory radar screen. Under the Clean Air Act, every power plant is obligated to cut its mercury emissions within three years to the level achieved by the best performing plants, about a 90 percent emissions reduction.

Since EPA has performed no analyses to date on the effects of this loophole on public health or the environment, this report uses the most recent EPA emissions data to examine the scope of the loophole. Key findings include the following:

- The loophole could exempt 39 percent (441 of 1,120) of the nation’s mercury-emitting power plant units from regulation. These 441 units collectively emitted 4,971 pounds of mercury into the air in 1999.

- The loophole could affect power plants in 36 of the 47 states with mercury-emitting power plants. In 16 states, total emissions from the exempt units could exceed 100 pounds per year. The loophole could exempt the most mercury emissions in Indiana (532 pounds), Pennsylvania (356 pounds), Kentucky (333 pounds), New York (321 pounds), South Carolina (316 pounds), and North Carolina (311 pounds).

- The loophole could have a profound impact on certain states. For instance, 64 percent of the mercury-emitting power plant units in New York could be exempt from reducing their mercury emissions under the bill. In 1999, these units collectively emitted 321 pounds of mercury into the air, or 31 percent of the state’s total power plant mercury emissions.

- In some cases, the loophole could let entire plants off the hook for cleaning up their mercury emissions. For instance, Virginia’s Potomac River plant has five units that emitted a total of 83.5 pounds of mercury into the air in 1999, yet the entire plant could get a free pass because none of its units individually emitted more than 30 pounds of mercury.

Rather than let many of the nation’s power plant units continue to emit or even increase their emissions of toxic mercury, Congress should reject the “Clear Skies” bill.