Mercury defies efforts of administration rulemakers

Washington Post: When a presidential administration sets out to regulate something as technically complicated, intrinsically controversial and potentially dangerous as mercury emissions from power plants, it should ensure that neutral civil servants control the process and that all decisions are known to have been taken in the public interest. The fact that the Bush administration has failed to fulfill that fundamental requirement is an excellent reason to denounce the rule on mercury emissions that the Environmental Protection Agency issued last week. The rulemaking process has been criticized not only by environmentalists but by the Government Accountability Office and the EPA inspector general. All say that the EPA ignored scientific evidence, consulted frequently with industry advocates and ultimately made the rule less ambitious so that it would not appear to conflict with the president's "Clear Skies" legislation, which failed in the Senate this month.
Not another pollutant
Nor is it clear that this rule stands much chance of surviving the inevitable litigation. In essence, the rule sets up a cap-and-trade system that will enable some power plants to reduce mercury emissions drastically while others continue emitting mercury. Yet mercury is not classified as an ordinary air pollutant. Because it is a neurotoxin that in large quantities causes brain damage, it is considered a hazardous air pollutant, which gives it a different legal status. Given that, it's hard to see how the administration's lawyers are going to defend any decision that makes it easier for power plants to emit mercury.
Yet the politicians who have been attacking the new rule for the past few days -- and implying that the nation could be completely protected from mercury poisoning if only the Bush administration would issue more stringent regulations -- are doing their constituents a disservice. Most Americans ingest mercury by eating fish caught in oceans, and oceans contain mercury from natural sources as well as from power plant and other industrial emissions outside the United States. Even if all U.S. power plants were shut down tomorrow, small children and American women of childbearing age would still be at risk from the mercury found in canned tuna, salmon and the pollock used in fish sticks. Whatever is done in this country, mercury is going to be present in some fish for a long time. That's the message that Americans should be getting, but are not.