Today, the Supreme Court agreed to review a challenge to an EPA rule to reduce mercury pollution.
The Utility Air Regulatory Group and the National Mining Association, and twenty-one states, appealed an April 2-1 federal appeals court ruling that upheld EPA's Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.
According to Center for Progressive Reform President and University of Maryland School of Law professor Rena Steinzor:
The Supreme Court’s decision to grant review is lamentable. It’s no surprise that the coal-fired power plants want to overturn EPA’s carefully crafted controls on mercury and other toxic pollutants. But this rule was mandated by the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments because mercury, in very small quantities, damages brain and nervous system development in children and babies in utero. The rule would control, for the first time, not just mercury but acid gases and heavy metals such as chromium, arsenic, and nickel. Cost-benefit analyses show that each year the rule will prevent as many as 11,000 premature deaths, 130,000 asthma attacks, and 3.2 million days when people cannot go to work or school. The electric utility industry, which has never met a public health safeguard that it can tolerate, wants the Supreme Court to micromanage the cost side of this equation, by requiring analysis not required by the Clean Air Act, and turning judges into economists who flyspeck thousands of pages of elaborate, impenetrable calculations. We can only hope the Court will resist that temptation.
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Erin Kesler | November 25, 2014
Today, the Supreme Court agreed to review a challenge to an EPA rule to reduce mercury pollution. The Utility Air Regulatory Group and the National Mining Association, and twenty-one states, appealed an April 2-1 federal appeals court ruling that upheld EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards. According to Center for Progressive Reform President and University of Maryland School […]
Erin Kesler | November 25, 2014
The Board of Directors of the Center for Progressive Reform today announced the selection of Matthew Shudtz as Executive Director of the 12-year-old organization. Shudtz, who succeeds Jake Caldwell, has been Acting Executive Director of CPR since July of this year. Shudtz joined CPR’s staff in 2006 as a Policy Analyst, and was subsequently promoted […]
Rena Steinzor | November 25, 2014
CPR is on the hunt for an energetic, organized, and dedicated advocate to join our staff as a Policy Analyst. The focus of this position is restoring the Chesapeake Bay through strong implementation of the Bay TMDL. We are especially interested in candidates who have a background in the legal and policy issues related to […]
James Goodwin | November 24, 2014
Later this week, most of us in the United States will gather together for the simple but meaningful act of sharing a meal as a way to celebrate and reflect upon the relationships and blessings that enrich our lives. The menus will differ from table to table, and family to family, of course. But very […]
Sidney A. Shapiro | November 20, 2014
The House of Representatives has passed legislation (H.R. 1422) that prohibits academic scientists on EPA’s Scientific Advisory committee from participating in “activities that directly or indirectly involve review of evaluation of their own work,” but allows scientists who work for industry to serve on the Board as long as they reveal their respective conflicts of […]
Matt Shudtz | November 19, 2014
Next week in this space, we’ll ask you to think about the food on your Thanksgiving table and what FDA ought to do to keep it safe. Today, I want to focus on how the food gets there—in particular, the work children contribute to the farms where our food and other crops are grown. Many […]
Anne Havemann | November 18, 2014
Today, the Third Circuit will hear arguments in a case to determine whether the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) overstepped its authority when it established a pollution diet for the Chesapeake Bay. After decades of failed attempts to clean up the Bay, the pollution diet imposes strong, enforceable deadlines for cleanup. Even without distracting and misguided […]
Matt Shudtz | November 17, 2014
In 1997, when OSHA first placed the silica standard on its to-do list, Titanic and Good Will Hunting were hits at the box office and the Hanson Brothers’ “MMMBop” was topping the charts. Pop culture has come a long way since then. OSHA, however, has only made modest progress on the silica rule. It took […]
Rena Steinzor | November 17, 2014
I have spent 38 years in Washington, D.C. as a close observer of the regulatory system, specifically the government’s efforts to protect public health, worker and consumer safety, and the environment. The system’s a mess. Regulatory failure has become so acute that we truly are frozen in a paradox. On one hand, people expect the […]