EPA Finalizes First Time Limits on Mercury and Toxic Pollution from Power Plants

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PHILADELPHIA, PA – December 21, 2011 – Today the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the Mercury Air Toxics Standards (MATS) for power plants to limit emissions of mercury, acid gases and other toxic pollution. The implementation of the rule will keep 91 percent of the mercury in coal from being released into the air.

 

The EPA signed the MATS into law on December 16, 2011 under the terms of a consent decree in a lawsuit brought by some states and environmental groups. “The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments mandated EPA to control toxic pollutants over twenty years ago and since then EPA has taken action to reduce emissions from all the highest emitting sources – except power plants. Today’s rules are a signal to coal-fired power plants that they are not exempt from common sense, life-saving rules,” said Joseph Otis Minott, Esq., Executive Director of the Clean Air Council.

 

The MATS consist of two rules. The first is a National Emission Standard for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) or Utility MACT and it establishes numerical limitations for mercury, particulate matter, hydrochloric acid and metals. The second is a New Source Performance Standard (NSPS) which will revise the standards new coal- and oil-fired power plants must meet for particulate matter, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.

 

While industry and some Congressional Republicans have made unsubstantiated claims that the MATS will cause widespread power plant closures and harm to electric grid reliability there are a range of widely available, technical and economically feasible practices, technologies and compliance strategies available to meet the emissions limits. In a December 20, 2011 report, which bodes well for national success and ease of compliance, the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management indicated that Massachusetts air rules reduced mercury emissions by 90 percent between 1996 and 2008 under requirements that are four times as strict as the MATS.

 

The MATS will avoid up to 17,000 premature deaths and 850,000 days of missed work in 2016 alone and will save the country up to $140 billion in health benefits from reduced exposure to fine particles.

 

“It is time for dirty power plants to either clean up their act or convert to clean energy. These rules remove the dangerous option of continuing to poison our communities that many utilities have elected for far too long,” said Minott.

 

 Review the complete standards here.