The EPA is trying to kill us.

[JohnnyRingo]

The EPA has apparently decided our very lives are not worth the expense of removing mercury from coal fired power plant emissions. I recall that he made a point of loving "clean coal". The move will be subject to a period of public feedback so Jared & Ivanka are likely firing up the phone banks.

Note the comment by Hal Quinn who questions the actual health benefits of more mercury in our systems.

EPA targets Obama crackdown on mercury from coal plants

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER, Associated Press | Posted: Fri 1:00 PM, Dec 28, 2018 | Updated: Fri 3:22 PM, Dec 28, 2018

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Friday targeted an Obama-era regulation credited with helping dramatically reduce toxic mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants, saying the benefits to human health and the environment may not be worth the cost of the regulation.

The 2011 Obama administration rule, called the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, led to what electric utilities say was an $18 billion clean-up of mercury and other toxins from the smokestacks of coal-fired power plants.

Overall, environmental groups say, federal and state efforts have cut mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants by 85 percent in roughly the last decade.

Mercury causes brain damage, learning disabilities and other birth defects in children, among other harm. Coal power plants in this country are the largest single manmade source of mercury pollutants, which enters the food chain through fish and other items that people consume.

A proposal Friday from the Environmental Protection Agency would leave current emissions standards in place. However, it challenges the basis for the Obama regulation, calculating that the crackdown on mercury and other toxins from coal plants produced only a few million dollars a year in measurable health benefits and was not "appropriate and necessary" — a legal benchmark under the country's landmark Clean Air Act.

The proposal, which now goes up for public comment, is the latest Trump administration move that changes estimates of the costs and payoffs of regulations in arguing for relaxing Obama-era environmental protections.

<snip>

Hal Quinn, head of the National Mining Association, charged in a statement Friday that the Obama administration had carried out "perhaps the largest regulatory accounting fraud perpetrated on American consumers" when it calculated that the broad health benefits to Americans would outweigh the cost of equipment upgrades by power providers.

More here:

https://www.wcjb.com/content/news/EPA-proposes-easing-regulation-of-mercury-from-coal-plants-503617021.html

[Cetacea]

1. It's not the EPA. It's the GOP and Trump butchering of the EPA and other Federal agencies

If Obama had been president, FEMA would have helped the people of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Marie. Trump has been gutting good agencies and reversing policy which in turn paints the public perception that the agencies themselves are no good.

[milestogo]

2. Welcome back, asbestos.

[walkingman]

3. EPA, NLRB, HHS, Energy, Interior, Education, Justice all are being run by morons.