EPA ignores health benefits of coal rule it plans to weaken: economists

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

HEALTH NEWS DECEMBER 4, 2019 / 12:11 PM / A DAY AGO

EPA ignores health benefits of coal rule it plans to weaken: economists

Timothy Gardner
3 MIN READ

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposal to weaken a rule on coal plant pollution fails to consider billions of dollars in health benefits for Americans, economists from universities including Harvard and Yale said on Wednesday.

The six economists said the proposal to change the rule on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants ignores an Obama-era estimate that it would slash U.S. healthcare bills by $33 billion to $90 billion per year. The rule would save billions of dollars in healthcare costs because it requires plants to not only cut emissions of mercury, but also fine particulates that cause heart and lung illnesses, they said.

But the Trump administration, which has aimed to slash regulations governing fossil fuel production, last year proposed revising the mercury rule while scrapping its estimate of the cost savings from reductions in emissions of fine particulates. The administration is expected to throw out an Obama administration finding that it is “appropriate and necessary” to regulate power plant emissions when it finalizes the proposal in coming weeks.

“Instead of weighing all the costs against all the benefits, the EPA is cherry picking,” said Yale University’s Matthew Kotchen, who released a report on the agency’s proposal with the other economists. “They pulled the biggest public health benefit off the scale.”

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Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-epa-mercury/epa-ignores-health-benefits-of-coal-rule-it-plans-to-weaken-economists-idUSKBN1Y82CD

[safeinOhio]

1. In my antique paper collection

I have an advertising card from the early 1900s. Here is what it says.

"Did you know that in coal there is cocaine, creosote, and aspirin-to relieve your pain-and many other chemical and medicinal compounds valuable to mankind?
Every load of Regal Coal is packed full of the qualities you always hoped to find in any one coal,,,ignites quickly…burns steadily…burns up clean.
The Glendale Coal Co. Toledo, Ohio Phone Walbridge 2620"