Category: Air Quality

No doubt it’s the Obama holdovers who still run the agency on a day-to-day basis.

This clip is from a brief filed in March 22, 2017 by the (supposedly) Trump EPA in litigation over the major war-on-coal EPA rule known as the Mercury Air Transport Standard (MATS).

As you can see, the Obama holdovers in the Trump EPA are telling the court that the rule will save 11,000 lives per year — all by reducing PM emissions from coal stacks.

Below is the background story on all this from Greenwire.

Readers of this page and “Scare Pollution” know the saving-11,000-lives claim is utterly false. the real number is ZERO.

As per the Greenwire story, EPA filed a motion this week stating the March 22 brief may not actually be its position. What the EPA is referring to as “not being its position” is unclear — i.e., it may or may not not include the saving-11,000-lives claim.

Here’s where the rubber hits the road, though.

The legal merits of coal industry arguments aside, I’m not sure how anyone can reasonably expect D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Democrats (or even Republicans) to rule in their favor if they think the EPA MATS rule is saving 11,000 lives per year.

If the PM_2.5-kills myth is allowed to continue and is indeed promoted by the Trump EPA, the rollback of the Obama war on coal will only last as long as pro-coal Republicans control the White House and are not forced by SCOTUS to continue the war on coal. Ever-wobbly and environmentally under-informed Justice Anthony Kennedy may indeed believe that coal kills. If he does he will be the 5-4 vote forcing/allowing EPA to destroy coal.