EPA Inspector General Demands Review Of Mercury Emissions Plan

[hatrack]

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency's investigative arm will review how the agency prepared a plan to cut mercury emissions from power plants, an EPA spokesman said Thursday, after Democrats complained that utility lobbyists unfairly watered down the proposal. EPA Inspector General Nikki Tinsley will review an agency rule proposed earlier this year which would require utilities to reduce mercury emissions by 70 percent by 2018, a Tinsley spokesman said.

Mercury contaminates water and seafood and has been linked to neurological disorders in infants. The nation's 1,100 coal-burning power plants emit about 48 tons of mercury each year, the largest unregulated U.S. source.

Six Democratic senators and Vermont Independent Sen. James Jeffords in April demanded an investigation, saying the EPA downplayed mercury health risks and allowed coal industry lobbyists to dictate the proposal's terms. They accused the EPA of "serious irregularities" in its rule-writing process that "would violate the spirit and the letter of the Clean Air Act." "The key questions are how and why the administration ignored its own science to let the biggest polluters ghostwrite its mercury plan," said Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy.

The senators asked Tinsley to finish the review before the EPA finalizes the rule in March 2005."

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http://www.enn.com/news/2004-05-14/s_23886.asp