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Most people's eyes glaze over when they hear about EPA's new Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology rule. But when they hear that it would raise their electricity bills, they start to pay attention.
Maximum Achievable Control Technology means that plants and boilers have to use the most stringent methods possible to get the heavy metals out of the air, even if these methods cost billions and the benefits are worth far less-as is the case with the new utility rule. That's why many plants will have to close.
Susan Dudley, director of the Regulatory Studies Center at George Washington University, has actually read all of the 510 page regulatory impact statement. She wrote in the National Journal on Monday, "If the enormous public benefits EPA predicts from these mercury standards were real, they would justify the cost to Americans of almost $11 billion per year. Unfortunately, they are not."
Dudley explains that EPA derives its benefits by assigning high values to reducing emissions of fine particles (not air toxics or acid gases) that will occur as a side-effect of the required controls on mercury. But EPA already regulates these particles through other rules. Through sleight of hand, EPA calculates almost all of the benefits for this rule from particle reductions that fall well below the levels it has already established as safe in other proceedings.
Mercury and arsenic are well-known to the public as toxic, and in certain doses can be lethal. But the new EPA rules would push emissions caps unnecessarily low, driving up generating costs and the price of power to industry and households, and forcing some boilers and plants to shut down.
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Of course driving up cost and forcing some plants to shut down is really the objective of the EPA. It fits their agenda of making their preferred inefficient alternative energy look more competitive. Instead of being honest about their objectives they schedule an announcement at the National children's Hospital to make it seem they are doing this for the kids. Don't fall for this scam. They are doing this for their friends at Big Green.
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