Posted February 24, 2011 in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, U.S. Law and Policy

Tags:

2011budget, cleanairact, mercury, pnp

 

For the first time in the forty-year history of the Clean Air Act, a majority of the House of Representatives has voted to block EPA from implementing and enforcing standards to sharply reduce mercury and other toxic air emissions from a polluting industry.

In one of a long list of irresponsible amendments to last week's Republican budget, nearly all Republicans and a small group of Democrats voted to block EPA standards to reduce mercury, arsenic, lead, PCBs, dioxins and furans, and heavy metals from cement plants.

Mercury and lead both are dangerous neurotoxins – brain poisons – that harm the developing brains of children and fetuses. Dioxins are known human carcinogens linked to birth defects, reproductive abnormalities, and lung and breast cancer. Arsenic is a known human carcinogen linked to lung and kidney cancer and PCBs are probable human carcinogens linked to liver cancer.

On February 17th, in a 250-177 vote, the House of Representatives approved an amendment by Rep. John Carter (R-TX) to deny any funds to EPA to “implement, administer or enforce” mercury and other toxic air pollution standards for all cement plants in the country.

The EPA standards [pdf] that the House voted to block would reduce cement plants’ mercury emissions nationwide by 16,600 pounds [pdf], a 92 percent reduction from projected 2013 emission levels.

Most of the remaining toxic pollutants are metals or organics that are reduced by controlling particulate matter and hydrocarbons, respectively. The EPA standards would further reduce particulate matter by 11,500 tons annually, a 92% reduction, and total hydrocarbons by 10,600 tons annually, an 83% reduction [pdf].

Were these toxic pollution safeguards allowed to take effect, EPA projects that starting in 2013 and every year thereafter, the standards would avoid: up to 2,500 premature deaths; 1,500 heart attacks; 17,000 cases of aggravated asthma; 32,000 cases of upper and lower respiratory symptoms; and 130,000 days when people would have missed miss work [pdf].

Instead, the following members of Congress chose to join the mercury and toxic pollution hall of shame by blocking EPA from carrying out and enforcing toxic air pollution standards. These members sided with corporate polluters over America’s children, health and environment.

).

Iowa: King (R) and Latham (R).

Special gratitude is owed the members who voted against the pernicious Carter amendment and stood up for America’s children and public health, EPA, and the Rule of Law. This is especially true of the courageous seven Republicans who broke with their caucus and voted against the irresponsible Carter amendment: Bass (NH), Johnson (IL), Lance, (NJ), LoBiondo (NJ), Smith (NJ), Wolf (VA), and Young (FL). (This gratitude must be tempered, however, by pointing out that all seven of these Republicans voted for passage of the final Republican budget, meaning that they ended up voting for the destructive Carter amendment in the final analysis anyway.)

The members supporting the dirty air amendment have anointed themselves into a toxic hall of shame of their own creation. History should not judge this distinction kindly.

 

 

Best,

 

 

John Walke

Natural Resources Defense Council

1200 New York Avenue, NW

Suite 400

Washington, DC 20005

(202) 289-2406 (W)

(703) 357-5438 (M)

 

Read my blog on clean air policy and law at http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jwalke/.