US Senate Democrats hold alternate 'hearing' on Bush mercury rule

Washington (Platts)--19Apr2005

Complaining that they have been shut out of the policymaking process by the
Republican-controlled Congress, a group of Democratic senators Tuesday
convened an unofficial "oversight" hearing to lambaste the US Environmental
Protection Agency's new rule regulating power plant mercury emissions. "This
is a hearing that the [US] Senate ought to be conducting," said Sen. John
Kerry (Democrat-Masschusetts). "Unfortunately, it has walked away from its
oversight responsibilities." 

Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that accumulates in the food chain,
particularly in fish. Kerry and the other senators accused the White House of
ordering EPA to issue a weak rule in order to please large energy companies.
Sen. Hillary Clinton (Democrat-New York), said the Bush administration asked
the energy industry what the emissions targets should be and then "worked
backwards" to get there.

Clinton lamented that Republicans are turning Washington into an
"evidence-free zone where science doesn't matter, only ideology." Among
Tuesday's witnesses to testify was Kathleen McGinty, secretary of the
Pennsylvania Dept of Environmental Protection. McGinty said the rule, in
addition to endangering public health, also deals a "potentially severe blow"
to her state's economy by "putting up unfair market barriers and promoting the
use of coal mined in the West." 

The administration defends the rule, which uses a cap-and-trade approach
similar to the acid-rain program, as the best way of reducing power plant
mercury emissions. It also says that it would be useless to impose more
stringent regulations on US power plants, since most domestic mercury
depositions come from overseas sources.

This story was originally published in Platts Electricity Alert
http://www.electricityalert.platts.com

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