The mercury is still rising

[RedEarth]

It's bad enough that the Bush administration has been caught literally taking coal industry language -- word for word -- and using it for new EPA regulations on mercury emissions. But it's so much worse that it's happened three times.

For the third time, environmental advocates have discovered passages in the Bush administration's proposal for regulating mercury pollution from power plants that mirror almost word for word portions of memos written by a law firm representing coal-fired power plants.
The passages state that the Environmental Protection Agency is not required to regulate other hazardous toxins emitted by power plants, such as lead and arsenic. Several attorneys general, as well as some environmental groups, have argued that the Clean Air Act compels the EPA to regulate these emissions as well as mercury.

The revelations concerning language written by Latham & Watkins could broaden an ongoing probe by the EPA's inspector general into whether the industry had an undue influence on the agency's proposed mercury rule, legislative critics of the proposed rule said.


You get caught, you're embarrassed, and you take steps to prevent it in the future. Except you don't, and you get caught again. There's some public outrage, you pretend it's no big deal, and you move on. Only to get caught again.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/002591.html