by Ann Withanee — December 28, 2011—It has been more than 20 years since the U.S. 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments were passed to reduce smokestack emissions of toxic pollutants. Now, more stringent standards have been enacted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that will stop power plants from spewing pollutants in the air.
On December 16, 2011, EPA finalized the first-ever national standards to reduce mercury and other toxic air pollution from coal and oil-fired power plants. The agency issued the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), the first national standards to protect Americans from power plant emissions of mercury and toxic air pollution agents like arsenic, acid gas, nickel, selenium, and cyanide. The standards will slash emissions of these dangerous pollutants by relying on widely available, proven pollution controls that are already in use at more than half of the nation’s coal-fired power plants.
EPA estimates that the new safeguards will prevent as many as 11,000 premature deaths; 4,700 heart attacks; 130,000 cases of childhood asthma symptoms; and about 6,300 cases of acute childhood bronchitis each year. Mercury has been shown to harm the nervous systems of children exposed in the womb, impairing thinking, learning and early development. Other pollutants that will be reduced by these standards can cause cancer, premature death, heart disease, and asthma.
The standards also ensure that public health and economic benefits far outweigh costs of implementation. EPA estimates that for every dollar spent to reduce pollution from power plants, the American public will see up to $9 in health benefits. The total health and economic benefits of this standard are estimated to be as much as $90 billion annually.
Power plants are the largest remaining source of several toxic air pollutants, including mercury, arsenic, cyanide, and a range of other dangerous pollutants, and are responsible for half of the mercury and over 75 percent of the acid gas emissions in the United States, notes EPA. Today, more than half of all coal-fired power plants already deploy pollution control technologies that will help them meet these achievable standards. Once final, these standards will level the playing field by ensuring the remaining plants—about 40 percent of all coal fired power plants—take similar steps to decrease dangerous pollutants.
The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards are based on the latest data and provide industry-significant flexibility in implementation through a phased-in approach and use of already existing technologies. An accompanying Presidential Memorandum directs EPA to use tools provided in the Clean Air Act to implement the standards in a cost-effective manner that ensures electric reliability.
The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards and the final Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which was issued earlier this year, are said to be the most significant steps to clean up pollution from power plant smokestacks since the Acid Rain Program of the 1990s.
