The Mercury Scandal
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| Tue, 04-06-2004 - 5:51pm |
By PAUL KRUGMAN
If you want a single example that captures why so many people no longer believe in the good intentions of the Bush administration, look at the case of mercury pollution.
Mercury can damage the nervous system, especially in fetuses and infants — which is why the Food and Drug Administration warns pregnant women and nursing mothers against consuming types of fish, like albacore tuna, that often contain high mercury levels. About 8 percent of American women have more mercury in their bloodstreams than the Environmental Protection Agency considers safe.
During the 1990's, government regulation greatly reduced mercury emissions from medical and municipal waste incineration, leaving power plants as the main problem. In 2000, the E.P.A. determined that mercury is a hazardous substance as defined by the Clean Air Act, which requires that such substances be strictly controlled. E.P.A. staff estimated that enforcing this requirement would lead to a 90 percent reduction in power-plant mercury emissions by 2008.
A few months ago, however, the Bush administration reversed this determination and proposed a "cap and trade" system for mercury that it claimed would lead to a 70 percent reduction by 2018. Other estimates suggest that the reduction would be smaller, and take longer.
For some pollutants, setting a cap on total emissions, while letting polluters buy and sell emission rights, is a cost-efficient way to reduce pollution. The cap-and-trade system for sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain, has been a big success. But the science clearly shows that cap-and-trade is inappropriate for mercury.
Sulfur dioxide is light, and travels long distances: power plants in the Midwest can cause acid rain in Maine. So a cap on total national emissions makes sense. Mercury is heavy: much of it precipitates to the ground near the source. As a result, coal-fired power plants in states like Pennsylvania and Michigan create "hot spots" — chemical Chernobyls — where the risks of mercury poisoning are severe. Under a cap-and-trade system, these plants are likely to purchase pollution rights rather than cut emissions. In other words, the administration proposal would perpetuate mercury pollution where it does the most harm. That probably means thousands of children born with preventable neurological problems.
So how did the original plan get replaced with a plan so obviously wrong on the science?
The answer is that the foxes have been put in charge of the henhouse. The head of the E.P.A.'s Office of Air and Radiation, like most key environmental appointees in the Bush administration, previously made his living representing polluting industries (which, in case you haven't guessed, are huge Republican donors). On mercury, the administration didn't just take industry views into account, it literally let the polluters write the regulations: much of the language of the administration's proposal came directly from lobbyists' memos.
E.P.A. experts normally study regulations before they are issued, but they were bypassed. According to The Los Angeles Times: "E.P.A. staffers say they were told not to undertake the normal scientific and economic studies called for under a standing executive order. . . . E.P.A. veterans say they cannot recall another instance where the agency's technical experts were cut out of developing a major regulatory proposal."
Mercury is just a particularly vivid example of what's going on in environmental protection, and public policy in general. As a devastating article in Sunday's New York Times Magazine documented, the administration's rollback of the Clean Air Act has gone beyond the polluters' wildest dreams.
And the corruption of the policy process — in which political appointees come in with a predetermined agenda, and technical experts who might present information their superiors don't want to hear are muzzled — has infected every area I know anything about, from tax cuts to matters of war and peace.
A Yawngate update: CNN called me to insist that despite what it first said, the administration really, truly wasn't responsible for the network's claim that David Letterman's embarrassing video of a Bush speech was a fake. I still don't understand why the network didn't deny White House involvement until it retracted the charge. But the main point of Friday's column was to highlight the way CNN facilitated crude administration smears of Richard Clarke.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A58608-2004Mar14¬Found=true
The conclusion seems about the same from all sources I have read on this topic: 2018 is a ridiculous deadline when SO MUCH could be done before then.
Where is the "what about the children" contingent on this issue? There has been a surpising silence on it and I wonder why?
Glassy
James
janderson_ny@yahoo.com
CL Ask A Guy
James
janderson_ny@yahoo.com
CL Ask A Guy
New Jersey Scientist Says Rewritten Mercury Regulations Downplay Toxicity.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/national/8395570.htm?1c
The Bush administration rewrote scientific language in its mercury regulations to downplay the chemical's toxic effects, a New Jersey scientist said Wednesday.
The results "appeared to be edited so as to give less weight to the potential health impacts of mercury," said Alan Stern, a state toxicologist who worked on a federal report measuring mercury's impact.
That report helped form the health basis for the administration's controversial plan to regulate mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, pollution that contaminates water and fish and can damage the brains of young children and fetuses. Critics say the plan doesn't do enough to reduce emissions.
Stern and other scientists who served on the National Academy of Sciences panel that prepared the report say their work was reworded to minimize the danger.
On Thursday, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., demanded congressional hearings on whether the science was fudged.
"This undue industry influence and White House manipulation of science is extremely serious and warrants immediate investigation," she said.
The White House's Council on Environmental Quality said the alterations were made by scientists with the federal Office of Management and Budget.
"They are civil servants. They are not political appointees of the Bush administration," said Dana Perino, a spokeswoman for the council. The administration issued health warnings about mercury-tainted fish a few weeks ago, she noted.
"Make no mistake," she said. "Mercury is a toxin that we take very seriously."
In 2000, Stern and the nine other scientists on the Academy panel studied the level at which mercury exposure is dangerous.
But the management and budget office reworded the findings in ways that made mercury's impacts seem less certain, Stern said. The changes were first reported in Wednesday's New York Times, which cited five other panel members who questioned the rewording.
"It was language that changed 'is' to 'could be' or that 'there is an association' to 'there may be an association but it has not been proven'" Stern told The Record.
Stern said none of the new wording was inaccurate. Some changes made by the White House in the health report were fair and clarified what had been imprecise warnings about mercury, Stern and other researchers said.
But where the administration had a chance to interpret uncertain or contradictory research, it came down on the side of minimizing the threat, he said.
"I think EPA knew what it wanted and edited the health reports to fit their proposal," Stern said.
The Bush administration has proposed letting coal-fueled plants trade among themselves the right to emit mercury, while gradually lowering the nationwide limit. Industry and the White House argue it's the most cost-efficient way of cutting emissions and say the plan would reduce mercury pollution by 70 percent over the coming decades.
Last week, New Jersey and nine other states, along with 45 U.S. senators, called on the Environmental Protection Agency to come up with a stronger plan. Environmental groups and several northeastern states, which are downwind from some of the biggest mercury sources, say emissions could be cut by 90 percent almost immediately if EPA simply ordered businesses to install the latest available technology.
Despite Clinton's request, congressional hearings seem unlikely. Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who heads the Senate Government Affairs Committee, also opposes the mercury trading plan, but said she saw no need for a further investigation.
While New Jersey also questioned the White House's use of science Thursday, Governor McGreevey trumpeted the state's plan to study local waters to find out just how badly the fish are contaminated.
"The data the state will gather from the fish will be critical to public safety," McGreevey said.
In a statement, McGreevey announced a $500,000 study to test the levels of mercury, dioxin, and PCBs in fish in the state's coastal waters and back bays, as well as the Passaic and lower Hackensack rivers.
New Jersey advises people to limit their consumption of fish caught throughout the state because of such toxic substances. But the advisories are based on old or inadequate data, said Bradley Campbell, New Jersey's commissioner of environmental protection.
Fish haven't been tested for mercury in five years; PCB tests haven't been done since 1992, he said.
Campbell wouldn't guess how the advisories may change. PCB levels in New Jersey water have probably fallen in recent years but mercury pollution may have increased, he said.
Fish will be sampled starting this summer or fall, with a final report due in October 2005.
Elaine
I have seen many articles that contend the WH's propaganda machine is discrediting sciences who oppose it's attack on the American environment. The only way to ensure a safe environment is to vote GWB out.
Good point!
Then some new Bush 'science' would be invented to discredit that theory, or
I agree, but with the administration life is important only in certain circumstances.