"buying pollution credits"

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New Hampshire Senate to Vote on Approach to Mercury Rule

By FELICITY BARRINGER

Published: March 24, 2005


"You're worrying me"... <snip>

Last week the Environmental Protection Agency issued a rule to limit mercury emissions from power plants. But rather than requiring across-the-board cuts in emissions it gave companies the ability to buy and sell pollution allowances. In the short run, some plants could buy allowances from cleaner companies and delay making large expenditures to cut emissions.

New Hampshire is one of the places that could be left to grapple with the emissions problem itself if local power plants - chiefly the Bow plant of the local utility, Public Service of New Hampshire - uses the flexibility the environmental agency granted last week to postpone a cleanup of what in 2003 was 116 pounds of mercury coursing upward from their stacks and raining down on the lands and waters to the southeast.

The Bow plant, known locally as the Merrimack plant for the river nearby, is one of hundreds in the country that, collectively, put out 48 tons of mercury annually, making them the largest single remaining source of airborne emissions of the toxic metal. In the 1990's federal regulation reduced emissions from other sources, like municipal incinerators.

<snip>

The measure, as approved by the committee last week, requires that mercury emissions from power plants be cut to 50 pounds annually by 2008 - 10 years ahead of the E.P.A.'s timetable for New Hampshire. By 2010, maximum emissions would be 24 pounds. In response to the testimony of Nancy Girard, vice president of the Conservation Law Foundation's New Hampshire Advocacy Center, the committee approved an amendment to the bill that would prohibit the emissions trading.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/24/national/24mercury.html?th&emc=th


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I think it is unconscionable that the regulations are written to make it easier to keep pouring more mercury into the environment.

[TahitiNut]

1. How about a 500% state sales tax on such purchases?

Why should such a transaction not be taxed at levels that could cover the economic cost of cleanup in the state?

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2. I don't think they even expect to try to clean it up

Once it's out there - it's out there. It's in the fish, the water, everything.


They try to estimate the health costs. But I don't think they have a clue. And then the EPA ignored their own study:

"New EPA Mercury Rule Omits Conflicting Data"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=21253&mesg_id=21253

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55268-2005Mar21.html


Also:

"The main finding is that for every thousand pounds of environmentally released mercury, we saw a 17 percent increase in autism rates," she said in an interview."

This was in a study that was released after the new regulations were announced.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3322825&mesg_id=3322856

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=691645§ion=news&src=rss/uk/topNews

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3. kick

:kick:

[bloom]

4. the "Leave Our Children Behind" rule

"In 2000, the EPA determined that due to the serious health threat posed by mercury, it should regulate mercury from power plants. In 2001, EPA estimated that under the Clean Air Act, available technologies could reduce 90 percent of mercury from power plants, bringing mercury emissions down to roughly 5 tons per year by 2008."

http://www.ems.org/nws/2004/01/30/epa_formalizes_l


"Mercury is a toxic metal emitted by industrial sources. U.S. power plants emit 48 tons a year, and the new rule establishes an emissions-trading program that is expected to lower emissions to about 31 tons by 2010 and to about 15 tons by 2026. The Harvard analysis was based on similar targets in President Bush's "Clear Skies" legislative proposal."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55268-2005Mar21.html

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So under the Clean Air Act - emissions would have been down to 5 tons by 2008. And under B**h's Clear Skies Act emissions will be down to 15 tons in 2026!!!!!!

It's quite a travesty - what they are doing. :argh:




Meanwhile it's totally a voluntary thing about getting mercury out of vaccines and they are trying to write laws so that the public will NOT be informed:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=229x958