EPA’s Mercurial Hypocrisy

How cynical is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency about the potential mercury hazard of compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs)?

Last week the EPA issued new guidance for the clean-up of mercury-containing CFLs.

Atypically minimizing any potential health risks and arrogantly assuming that people patronize the agency’s web site, the EPA’s media release states,

CFLs contain a small amount of mercury sealed within the glass tubing. When a CFL breaks, some of the mercury is released as vapor and may pose potential health risks. The guidance and brochure will provide simple, user friendly directions to help prevent and reduce exposure to people from mercury pollution. [Emphasis added]

But consider that EPA’s “Mercury and Hazardous Chemicals in Schools: A Manual for Students in Southeast Asia” (April 2008) states that:

Just as there are no safe uses of mercury and mercury-containing equipment in schools, there are no safe uses for these products in homes, either. Tell your parents about the toxic effects of mercury, and encourage them to remove all mercury products from your home.

Also consider that EPA says that eating the mercury from a broken thermometer is safer than inhaling mercury vapor (i.e., how you would be exposed to mercury from a broken CFL):

It is not uncommon for children to break fever thermometers in their mouths. Mercury that is swallowed in such cases poses low risk comparison [sic] to the risk of breathing mercury vapor.

Consider what Brown University researchers had to say in an August 2008 study of CFL breakage published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology:

Some [CFL] lamps are inevitably broken accidentally during shipping, retail sales, consumer use, and recycling and release a portion of their mercury inventory as volatile vapor, which is the dominant mercury form in the early stages of lamp life. Inhalation exposure is a concern because 80% of inhaled [mercury] is physiologically absorbed.

  • The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) occupational exposure limit (8 h, 5-day week time average) is 100 [micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m3)].
  • The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recommended exposure limit is 50 μg/m3, while American Conference of Governmental and Industrial Hygienists recommends 25 μg/m3 under the same conditions.
  • Because children are more susceptible, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) recommends 0.2 μg/m3 level as a safe continual exposure limit for children.

As an illustration of the effects of CFL breakage, the release of only 1 mg of [mercury] vapor (~20% of the Hg inventory in a single CFL) into a 500 m3 room (10 × 10 × 5m) yields 2.0 μg/m3 or ten times the ATSDR-recommended level of 0.2 μg/m3 in the absence of ventilation. [Footnotes omitted, and bullets and emphasis added]

So how much mercury was released into the air when these researchers fractured CFLs in their study? According to the Brown researchers,

The release is initially rapid producing vapor concentrations from 200−800 μg/m3 during the first hour, which far exceed the OSHA occupational limits.

And if you go to EPA’s IRIS data base, you’ll see that the EPA’s Reference Concentration (RfC or permissible exposure via inhalation) for elemental mercury is 0.3 μg/m3. Note that the reported 200-800 μg/m3 air concentrations upon bulb breakage are somewhat greater  than the EPA’s RfC (by 667 to 2,667 times to be precise).

The EPA promotes the safety of CFLs  in order to advance its jihad against greenhouse gases. The agency would apparently rather have you and/or your children exposed to possibly thousands of times more mercury than the agency itself deems safe than to have you use an incandescent bulb and emit an ounce or so more of CO2 per hour of bulb use.

Were CFLs not useful in the EPA’s cause —  let’s say they were just a funny looking light bulb sold as a novelty item — there can be little doubt that the agency would have long ago taken action to ban them as needlessly unsafe. The agency has stated, after all, “there are no safe uses for mercury-containing products] in homes” and children should tell their parents “to remove” them from homes.

Would you rather be exposed to possibly thousands of more times mercury than the EPA says is safe or....
... or would you rather have your power plant emit an extra ounce or so of carbon dioxide per hour of bulb use?

One common requirement for science, law and government to function as intended is consistency. Exposure to low levels of mercury is either safe or it is not. But the EPA wants it both ways, depending on the purpose being served.

In the realm of federal regulation, this sort of hypocrisy would seem to be proscribed by the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) as “arbitrary and capricious.” When the APA was enacted in 1946, then-Nevada Sen. Pat McCarran called it “a bill of rights for the hundreds of thousands of Americans whose affairs are controlled or regulated in one way or another by agencies of the Federal Government.”

But since there is typically no meaningful way for anyone to enforce that law against the EPA, it is a mere vestige of Congress’ post-New Deal efforts to make the burgeoning federal bureaucracy accountable to the people that pay for, and are impacted by it.

Maybe that accountability is something that the 112th Congress, which begins this week, can begin to reinstate.

Fred Upton = Henry Waxman-lite?

The chairman-designate of the House Energy and Commerce Committee said on Fox News Sunday today that he is in favor of regulating of carbon dioxide. According to a report in The Hill:

Asked whether he believes greenhouse gases are a problem in need of addressing at all, Upton replied, “we want to do this in a reasonable way,” and cited the need to boost development of energy sources like low-emissions coal, nuclear power and natural gas to meet growing demand.

I’m sure outgoing Energy Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman thought his plan to regulate CO2 was “reasonable” as well.

Prepare yourself for the coming GOP wimp-out…

Not too bright about coal at the Washington Post

The front-page of the today’s Washington Post Business section features a lengthy article about investors and utilities shunning coal (Coal’s Burnout: Have investors moved on to cleaner energy sources?).

This photo took up about one-fourth of the front-page:

The photo was captioned:

In the battle over coal’s place in U.S. energy policy, President Obama hopes to prod utilities and manufacturers to switch to natural gas to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Sadly, that is not a photo of coal; it is charcoal. And charcoal is not coal. Not even close. This particular charcoal was obviously made from trees. It was not mined. It is not the same substance that provides nearly one-half of our electricity.

You may remember when, in March 2008, the Washington Post ran the image below of a hazy Beijing, attributing the haze to carbon dioxide — even though CO2 is invisible and plays no role in the formation of smog.

It kind of makes you wonder about the Post‘s opposition to coal since it seems to know little about it.

Memo to the Washington Post: The photo below is of the fruit known as grapes; but that does not mean they are grapefruit.

(h/t Johnny Lucid)

One cheer for Arizona…

There’s good news and bad news from Arizona, according to a report in the Arizona Republic.

The good news is that the state is refusing to implement the EPA’s new climate regulations, which go into effect today.

The bad news is that the state is allowing the EPA to enforce the rules since it is afraid the agency might otherwise move to stop construction projects and hurt the state’s economy.

But why not force the agency’s hand? Make it go to court. Force Obama to explain why he wants to hurt the state for no good reason. Make a federal judge rule against the state. Make the Supreme Court rule against the state. Put the rogue federal government on display for all to see. Light a fire under Arizona’s governor and its congressional delegation.

Let’s not just go gently into that good night.

Courts blocks EPA from Texas takeover

From Bloomberg:

A federal appeals court temporarily blocked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from taking control of Texas’s carbon-emission rules while it considers the state’s bid to fend off federal intervention.

Texas filed a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington yesterday, saying the EPA didn’t give adequate notice or allow for comments on a proposed federal takeover of the state’s air permitting program on Jan. 2. Last night, the court ordered the agency to hold off on its plan while the court considers whether to delay the move until the case is resolved.

The appeals court ordered the EPA to respond to Texas’s motion by Jan. 6. Challenges to federal rules are brought directly to appeals courts.

Because Texas had not adopted a plan for implementing the EPA’s climate rules, the EPA was all set to take charge of greenhouse gas permitting in Texas starting Jan 2. This takeover has been blocked at least temporarily. So for the time being, emissions will not be regulated in Texas. The rest of the country, however, is screwed.

Court deals Blow to Upton’s EPA strategy

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit dealt a blow yesterday to Rep. Fred Upton’s hope-the-litigation-works strategy for fending off EPA’s imminent climate regulation. The court denied the state of Texas’ bid to block the EPA’s rules from taking effect next week.

So barring some holiday season miracle, the EPA will soon further oppress an already-strained economy and euthanize more of our freedoms for absolutely no purpose (other than the advancement of Comrade Obama’s agenda).

It’s looking like Upton and the rest of the often jello-y GOP leadership may actually have to develop a spine. Shall we hold our collective (but not collectivized!) breath?

GOP all set to wimp out on EPA?

A key Republican is already laying the groundwork for the 112th Congress’ surrender on the EPA’s climate rules. More surprising is the complicity of a tea party group.

Rep. Fred Upton, the chairman-designate of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, co-authored an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal with the promising title, “How Congress Can Stop the EPA’s Power Grab.”

Now that we face the prospect of flagrantly illegal, arbitrary, expensive and pointless regulation of greenhouse gases by the EPA, I was eager to read how the new Congress was going to, say, slash the EPA’s budget to prevent it from implementing the climate rules or perhaps shutdown the federal government if the Obama administration proceeded with its plan to dictate energy policy in order to control the economy.

Instead, Upton offered a mere two sentences of action that are better described pusillanimity rather than pugnacity:

The best solution is for Congress to overturn the EPA’s proposed greenhouse gas regulations outright. If Democrats refuse to join Republicans in doing so, then they should at least join a sensible bipartisan compromise to mandate that the EPA delay its regulations until the courts complete their examination of the agency’s endangerment finding and proposed rules.

Earth to Upton, it will be impossible to overturn or delay the EPA rules because:

  • There will likey be more than 40 Democrat senators to filibuster any effort to overturn or delay the rules. Likely filibuster-ers include Begich (AK), Feinstein (CA), Boxer (CA), Bennet (CO), Lieberman (CT), Blumenthal (CT), Carper (DE), Coons (DE), Nelson (FL), Akaka (HI), Inouye (HI), Durbin (IL), Harkin (IA), Cardin (MD), Mikulski (MD), Kerry (MA), Levin (MI), Stabenow (MI), Franken (MN), Klobuchar (MN), Tester (MT), Reid (NV), Shaheen (NH), Lautenberg (NJ), Menedenz (NJ), Bingman (NM), Udall (NM) ,Schumer (NY), Gillibrand (NY), Hagan (NC), Brown (OH), Merkley (OR), Wyden (OR), Casey (PA), Reed (RI), Whitehouse (RI), Johnson (SD), Leahy (VT), Warner (VA), Webb (VA), Cantwell (WA), Murray (WA), and Kohl (WI). Most of these senators already voted last June against the Murkowski amendment to rollback the EPA rules under the Congressional Review Act.
  • Even if a bill to overturn/delay the rules managed to get out of Congress, President Obama would veto it — and it’s unlikely that Republicans could muster the two-thirds majorities needed to overturn the veto.

The wimpiness, here is breathtaking. Aside from the total ineffectiveness of the plan, Upton fails to support his preferred solution (overturning the rules) with a more aggressive, less-palatable-to-Democrats alternative (defunding the EPA or shutting down the government). Instead, Upton’s alternative course is weaker (delaying the rules) and is offered from the position of a supplicant (“at least” do the “sensible, bipartisan compromise” — pretty please?).

I hope EPA administrator Lisa Jackson doesn’t hurt herself rolling on the floor.

Upton expresses high hopes, if not expectations, that ongoing litigation will curb the EPA. But an appellate court recently held that the EPA can wreak its havoc on our economy while the litigation is ongoing. And who knows how long it will take to get a final ruling from the Supreme Court? Keep in mind that the current Court is philosophically unchanged from the one ruling in 2007 that EPA could regulate greenhouse gases.

Moreover, while the portion of the EPA’s climate rules that is flagrantly illegal is likely to be overturned (i.e., the so-called “tailoring rule” under which EPA unilaterally amended the Clean Air Act to  limit regulation of greenhouse gases from 100-ton emitters to 75,000-ton emitters), it is unlikely that the Court will overturn the EPA’s so-called “endangerment funding” (which declares that greenhouse gases are a threat to the public welfare). Under the 1984 Supreme Court case Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, it is extremely difficult to show that an agency has acted arbitrarily and capriciousily in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act.

No profile in courage, Upton is wishing for a litigation miracle so that he doesn’t have to get down in the mud and wrestle with the Obama administration.

Also of note is Upton’s co-author, Tim Phillips of Americans for Prosperity (AFP) — a nationwide conservative grassroots group that has tried to blend in with the tea party movement. But AFP may be risking its tea party credentials by signing on to Upton’s exercise in bipartisan futility  —  where liberal/socialist Democrats get what they want and the rest of us get the shaft. That may be standard Washington, DC fare, but it is not what tea partiers voted for in November.

I’m not surprised by Upton’s wimpiness — that’s why conservatives wanted Joe Barton (R-TX) to be chairman of Energy and Commerce, not the light-bulb-banning Upton — but I am surprised by AFP’s. Shame on them.

Here’s the bottom line. Since the new Congress will not rubber stamp Obama’s socialist legislative agenda, the President will seek to socialize us via regulation — regardless of legality. The EPA’s climate regulation plan is unconstitutional on its face (only Congress, not federal agencies, can change laws). Another example of the coming socialization-by-regulation is the Federal Communications Commission’s recent party-line vote to implement net neutrality rules despite the a federal appellate court ruling that it lacks the statutory authority to do so.

“Every battle is won before it is fought,” said Sun Tzu. Upton, according to his op-ed, has already surrendered to Obama. Oh well, at least election night was fun.

Lugar: From START to ‘Stop!’

Fresh off selling us out on the START treaty, Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar is poised to introduced a “clean energy” bill in the 112th Congress, according to Carbon Control News. According to CCN,

A number of policy provisions have already been floated for inclusion in such legislation, including a “clean energy standard” that would include renewables as well as coal with carbon capture and sequestration, along with nuclear [loan guarantees], energy efficiency standards and support for natural gas vehicles and infrastructure.

Renewable electricity and energy efficiency standards hurt consumers by raising electricity prices. Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), and natural gas vehicles/infrastructure hurt taxpayers since they will be paying the upfront costs. Significant CCS isn’t even possible. Nuclear loan guarantees don’t guarantee that new nukes will be built so much as they guarantee that failure will be borne in large part by taxpayers.

None of this will improve the environment in any discernible way. None of this will make us more energy secure/independent than we already are. These policies are just flat-out rentseeking by utilities like Indiana’s Duke Energy, Exelon, and NextEra, and a certain Texas oilman.

The 78-year old Lugar is up for reelection in 2012. He ought to be primaried and hopefully put to pasture in 2013 — where he can ruminate over whether it really made sense to surrender America’s right to missile defense in return for worthless promises from the diabolical Vladimir Putin.

End of an hysteri-era? Frigid weather not blamed on ‘climate change’

ExxonMobil-caused-global-warming-cum-climate-change, we hardly knew ye.

Though we have become accustomed to any and every change in the weather being blamed on the much-dreaded ExxonMobil-caused-global warming-cum-climate-change, we now have a sentinel indicator — yes, the proverbial canary in a coal burning power plant — that the days of wanton media attribution of weather change to manmade carbon dioxide emissions may be nearing an end.

In the Daily Mail (UK) article “How a freak diversion of the jet stream is paralysing the globe with freezing conditions,” Niall Firth reports,

Experts are still unsure why [the jet stream has been diverted] but suspect it may be related to the EL Nino weather system as well as changes in sea temperatures and solar activity.

‘Tis the season of miracles, indeed.

Hook ’em Horns: Texas sues EPA anew on climate

The state of Texas has filed a new lawsuit against the EPA and the climate rules slate to take effect on Jan. 2.

Following the rejection of a request for a stay of the EPA rules by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Texas has filed its new effort to stay the rules in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

In petitioning the court to review the EPA’s action, Texas claims:

The GHG SIP Call is contrary to both the Clean Air Act and the Constitution. Recognizing the proper role of the States, the Clean Air Act declares pollution prevention to be “the primary responsibility of States and local governments,” and not the federal government. 42 U.S.C. § 7401(a)(3). EPA rejects that approach and seeks to deprive Texas of its right to manage its air resources. It does so by unlawfully replacing a properly-approved Texas SIP, despite Texas’ strong track record of reducing pollution and improving air quality in the State. The United States Constitution also denies the federal government the authority to commandeer the States to carry out its ends, but here EPA attempts just that by threatening Texas with severe economic harm unless the State adopts, on an unrealistic timeline, EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations, which are themselves unlawful.

The GHG SIP Call is arbitrary and capricious and is contrary to the Clean Air Act. The State of Texas is directly and immediately harmed by the GHG SIP Call because it purports to rescind the State of Texas’ permitting authority under the Prevention of Significant Deterioration program, 42 U.S.C. § 7470 et seq., and, thereby, to impose a construction moratorium on greenhouse gas sources. This action causes Texas and its citizens great and immediate injury, in the form of forgone business investment, lost jobs, lost tax revenues, and administrative expenses. By contrast, this regulation accomplishes no discemable environmental benefit. The amount of greenhouse gas emissions that would be avoided under this regulation is miniscule; indeed, it is impossible to even measure. The State of Texas therefore reserves the right to request that the Court stay the GHG SIP Call pending resolution ofthe instant Petition.

The EPA responded that Texas is merely forum-shopping, looking for a sympathetic court in the wake of the D.C. Circuit decision.

Stayed tuned and… Remember the Alamo!

EWG pulls an ‘Erin Crockovich’

“Group funds ‘Erin Brockvich’ chemical in D.C., Bethesda Water” was this morning’s scary Washington Post headline. The comrades at the Environmental Working Group reportedly found hexavalent chromium (Cr-6) in drinking water across the country at levels up to 200 times greater than the goal proposed by California (0.06 ppb). Cr-6 reportedly is associated with increased cancer risk in laboratory mice.

Before you swear off tap water, run to your doctor, join a class action lawsuit or do anything other than simply roll on the floor laughing at Ken Kook and his fellow EWG Krazies, here’s a few things to consider:

  1. Outside of a hotly disputed study of a 1970s-era Chinese population, epidemiologic studies have not associated Cr-6 exposure with increased risk of cancer. Even the EPA acknowledges this (See p. 207 of April 2010 EPA review document). Then there’s this comment from a review of the Cr-6 epidemiology:

    The weight of scientific evidence supports that Cr-6 is not carcinogenic in humans via the oral route of exposure at permissible drinking-water concentrations. [J Toxicol Environ Health A. 2002 May 24;65(10):701-46.]

  2. Mice are not little people. So who cares whether lab mice poisoned with Cr-6 got cancer or did cartwheels?
  3. No violations of the EPA drinking water standard for chromium were reported. While there are no specific drinking water standards for Cr-6, the EPA oral reference dose (RfD) for Cr-6, which includes a monster safety factor of 300, is way above the levels of Cr-6 detected by EWG.
  4. The proposed California standard for Cr-6 is not science-based.
  5. The EWG specializes in efforts to scare people about the mere presence of chemicals and metals in drinking water. The group seems to be impervious to Paracelsus’ 450-year-old basic toxicology principle that “the dose makes the poison.”
  6. Reporter Lyndsey Layton is apparently the radical environmental movement’s new stenographer at the Washington Post, following in the embarrassing tradition of Juliet Eilperin, Joby Warrick, Gary Lee and others. Layton is also assisting the left in its jihad against bisphenol A (BPA).

So that just about covers it for EWG’s hexavalent chromium scare — junk science manufactured by radical leftists and trumpeted by a media stooge.