Groups challenge EPA mercury rule over release of other toxins
Washington (Platts)--11Jul2005
Several conservation groups have mounted a different type of challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency's already lawsuit-plagued mercury rule: a suit alleging that the measure is illegal because it allows power plants to emit lead, arsenic and other toxic substances that they previously had to control. The suit, filed late Friday in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, focuses on a provision of the rule that rescinds an earlier EPA finding that required plants to install high-tech pollution-control equipment to curb their emissions of mercury and other substances classified as "hazardous air pollutants" under the federal Clean Air Act. EPA's new rule, which the agency issued in March, uses a cap-and-trade system that allows dirtier plants to buy pollution-reduction credit of mercury from other, cleaner facilities. But it provides no such mechanism for other CAA-designated hazardous air pollutants, which include arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, manganese, dioxins and lead. EPA's mercury rule declares that these substances pose "no hazards to public health." The lawsuit, filed by Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and other groups, argues otherwise. "Some of these pollutants...can have catastrophic effects on peoples' lives," said Nat Mund of Sierra Club. EPA maintains that power plants do not emit enough non-mercury hazardous air pollutants to justify requiring the entire industry to install state-of-the-art pollution controls to capture them. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson Monnday said he is "very proud" of the mercury rule, which he says will cost the power sector $51-bil in compliance costs. "That's a significant impact," Johnson said. EPA faces a host of other lawsuits over the mercury rule, as well as a challenge brought by several dozen lawmakers under the seldom-used Congressional Review Act. For more news about rules affecting power plants, take a trial to Platts Inside Energy at http://insideenergy.platts.com.
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