“Legal challenges to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s controversial Mercury and Air Toxics Standards by developers of new power plants are held in abeyance, by order of a federal court, while the agency reconsiders aspects of the standards.” [State Journal]
This tactic by EPA delays the noise about the rule until well after the election. They get the best of both worlds: no bad press and permit actions stop because they don’t know what the rules are. The Obama/Jackson EPA has taken a number of actions that effectively delay permitting. The 1-hour NO2 National Ambient Air Quality Standard was so poorly written with no modeling guidance that I spent 2.5 years getting a permit for a generating plant at a landfill. The permit should have taken no more than 6 months. They “clarified” the Commercial and Industrial Incinerator (CISWI) and the Nonhazardous Secondary Materials (NHSM) rules by removing some definitions for “clarity.” They got real coy about not responding to questions in a straightforward manner on landfill gas. The upshot was that North Carolina stopped writing permits for renewable energy projects and landfill gas flares, which were required by other regulations. For all their “support” for green energy the stoppers outnumber the enablers in the EPA by about 10:1.
The MATS rule game is part of the same tactics of delay, make difficult and make expensive. Enough regulatory friction and cheap, affordable energy will be but another thing of history. Do they answer the question of showing that a 90% reduction in (methyl?)mercury will result in a 90% reductions of the power plant mercury poisonings?
Congress is financially inept. They have no concept of “net present value.” Awards, even if it were their business, are 3X too large.
Some zealous doctors pleaded for funding to study the health of first responders who were exposed to the “toxic cloud ” at ground zero of the 9/11/2001 attack.
The fumes from “the pile” was water, CO2, and soot from the burning of office furnishing and paper. There was no mechanism to expel inert material that would, according to the doctors, cause great harm. Besides the air at ground zero was continuously refreshed by wind. The theory made no sense, but Senator Gillibrand and others hit taxpayers for billions of dollars to fund the doctors and greedy union workers.
The claims never materialized because the theory was insane. So Senator Gillibrand increased the criteria for payments to include cancers unrelated to the exposures at ground zero.
The EPA rules are based upon equally fallacious science. For heavens sakes, not too long ago mercury was a medicine to fight syphilis.
The science that proved that the universe started with a Big bang 13.7 billion years ago is glorious. The science that says any amount of human life is worth three times the lifetime income of average workers is blasphemous.
It’s past time to redefine the EPA, NHSTA, and FDA. These agencies are infected by Naderites and, in my opinion, do far more harm than good.
now just imagine that…. *grin*
Strange how all these rules and regulations are being delayed until after the election.
The EPA will now ponder ‘technical errors’. Yes, perhaps some things were ‘poorly worded’ or something. This is a war of attrition, don’t expect a real conclusion any time soon.