Old mercury emissions ruling thrown out
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The Supreme Court today denied an industry request to reconsider a lower court ruling against a Bush administration rule on mercury emissions from power plants.
The court announced today that it would not review a decision by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, requested by the Utility Air Regulatory Group, to overturn the Clean Air Mercury Rule.
The utility group asked the court to review the case last fall, arguing that the Bush administration had legally decided not to regulate power plants under the Clean Air Act's Section 112, which requires the strictest emission controls, in order to allow for a more flexible cap-and-trade approach favored by utilities.
Attorneys for the Bush administration's Justice Department also requested a Supreme Court hearing on the mercury case last fall, but the Obama administration asked the Supreme Court earlier this month to drop the request for review.
The court today also granted the Obama administration's request to dismiss the Bush administration's appeal.
Obama's EPA this month announced plans to develop maximum achievable control technology, or MACT, standards for electric utilities that force each individual plant to curb their emissions, as opposed to the Bush administration's cap-and-trade approach that the federal appeals court struck down.
John Walke, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the Obama administration would end eight years of efforts to stave off mercury controls for power plants.
"That shameful era is at an end, but thankfully now we can all look forward to strong MACT standards that will sharply reduce mercury emissions from power plants," Walke said.
The utility group maintains that EPA had lawfully decided not to regulate coal- and oil-fired power plants under the stricter section of the Clean Air Act, said Lee Zeugin, the industry group's counsel and an attorney at Hunton & Williams.
"I guess we're going to move forward with MACT [standards]," Zeugin said, adding that the group remains concerned about whether EPA has the legal authority to require stricter controls from power plants.
The agency will now embark on several years of MACT rulemaking for power plants with no mercury regulations in place in the meantime, Zeugin said. When the final rule is released, "I'm sure UARG will challenge EPA's authority to do any of it," he said.
Reprinted from Greenwire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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16 Comments
Add Commentyou go boy!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs was expected. Nasty old coal provides energy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe have to ban coal burning to make room for the mercury released from broken / discarded compact fluorescent bulbs, whose use is mandated by Congress.
This may be another case of quest for the perfect destroying the good. Cap-and-trade worked wonderfully for acid rain and did the job faster, better and cheaper than projected. It is usually better to rely on incentives and imagination than fall back on command and control.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow a group of bureaucrats will study the issue and figure out the best methods to use. By the time they do, those methods will be obsolete.
We get cleaner air faster when we give firms and people incentives to be imaginative in solving the problem rather than giving them incentives to duck the issue of go to their lawyers. We should have learned that from the acid rain solution.
Follow some Facts, Please. The Hg from an improperly disposed bulb goes into a landffill.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNOT your lungs!
PeterT
i can not wait for ITER to acomplish enough to start producing fusion energy, but then again people like to argue so they will find something wrong with anything
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGood. Mercury isn't fun. Cutting down on it anywhere isn't a bad thing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe light bulb ordeal is stupid. I went primal and now use candles for light. I know, I know, it looks sinister, and I must be evil, walking around at night with fire in my hand. I just prefer the flickering yellow light of an open flame, & there's something about firelight... A bonus is that the only electricity my household uses is the fridge. I'd need another solar cell to take care of that one. Maybe in a few months...
This is just another step along the path to outlawing all forms of energy production.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople got along just fine in the 17th century without giant power plants; so can we.
FollowFacts, if you truly did follow facts you will know the incandescent lamp that does not contain any mercury contributes more Hg to the environment than a Compact fluorescent lamp over a similar lifespan.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEnlighten yourself at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp
Burning coal is the main source of environmental Hg. Most Hg enters the food chain from the oceans. Don't eat seafood with long life spans to avoid getting it into your body. If on the other hand you want to cripple your mind indulge. A friend suffering from Alzheimer can not recognise anyone, but is happy at all times.
PeterT: Not if you drop a CFB in your house and it breaks. The advice I've seen is that you need to treat that event like a hazmat spill.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScientific earthling: In that I really do try to follow facts, could you please cite support other than wikipedia in matters related to climate change/AGW? And for Hg as a cause of Alzheimers? That would be a breakthrough! But I am truly sorry for your friend.
The painful fact of the matter is we will be decades recovering from the damage done by Bush and his band of neocon nazis.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMithremakor: America may never recover from the anti-technology Luddites that control Washington now. Get ready for the 18th century. Respectfully, Albert
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFollowFacts: I did not say Hg has anything to do with Alzheimers - I just pointed out that loosing you mind is not always such a bad thing. Hg does cause mental problems - origin of Mad as a hatter - people manufacturing hats were exposed to Hg and suffered mental illness as a result. See http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/mad-as-a-hatter.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you don't like wikipedia in relation to hg emitions from using the 2 light bulb types Type CFL incandescent lamps Hg emissions in Google and take your pick.
Dr Albert : America may never recover if it continues to deny that ressources are running out. When they do run out it will be too late to get back to the 18th century, unless Washington takes measures now...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Mithremakor: America may never recover from the anti-technology Luddites that control Washington now."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's rich. Any idiot can burn a bunch of fossil fuels to make energy (and a ton of pollution to go along with it). It takes some serious technology to make clean energy. Luckily, we now have a president who isn't living in the back pocket of the oil companies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAgreed, too much mercury is bad, but a little bit isn't that bad! When I was in high school back in the dark ages, our chemistry teacher had us heating cinnabar with a flame to make little balls of mercury. When a thermometer broke, we used the mercury to rub on pennies to make them look like dimes. I haven't suffered any ill effects. At age 75, I'm still quite capable of reading and understanding Scientific American. I don't understand the current panic about a broken CFB. By the way, on a side note, during WWII tin was scarce, so they wrapped sticks of chewing gum in lead foil.
Agreed that a lot of mercury is dangerous, but a little bit isn't all that bad. Back in the dark ages when I was in high school chemistry, we blew flames onto cinnabar to get a little ball of mercury. In physics, the teacher had a gadget that had an open pool of mercury in the bottom and a spring suspended into it. When he ran a current through it, the spring contracted and broke the circuit, so that the spring bounced up and down. And when we broke a thermometer, we collected the mercury to rub on a penny to make it shine like a new dime. (After a couple of days, it turns whitish.) I'm none the worse for wear. I've been reading and understanding SciAm for 55 years. I don't understand the panic about a broken CFB.
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