Economists See ‘Deep Flaws’ in Trump EPA Plan to Undercut Pollution Rule
Environmental policy experts see a pattern in administration initiatives that target public-health protections from bad air.
Emissions rise from the American Electric Power Co. (AEP) coal-fired John E. Amos Power Plant in Winfield, West Virginia, U.S., on Wednesday, July 18, 2018. American Electric Power Co., Duke Energy Corp., and others said they can't recoup money they spent to meet requirements to cut mercury and other air toxics from their facilities and therefore wanted the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to retain the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule as is.
Photographer: Luke Sharrett/BloombergBy proposing to obliterate the legal justification for restricting toxic pollution from power plants, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has flouted bedrock practices that have driven federal policymaking for decades, according to a group of resource economists writing in the journal Science.
Finalized in 2012, the agency’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) was the first U.S. rule to regulate mercury, a potent neurotoxin emitted primarily from coal-burning power plants. The power industry has complied with it since April 2016, the deadline spelled out in the rule.