Editorial: Bush's proposal would make a risky situation worse. Congress can stop it.
You might want to skip seconds at the fish fry.
Certain freshwater fish caught in Pennsylvania and New Jersey aren't safe to eat in large quantities. Neither are ocean swordfish, shark, king mackerel, golden snapper and, maybe, tuna.
That's because fish flesh contains mercury, which can cause palsies, seizures, learning problems, and structural abnormalities in children, even at low doses.
America needs to eliminate this toxin from its food chain.
Unlike other pollutants, mercury has only recently come under federal regulation. Forty-four states, including New Jersey in January, have had to issue warnings against fish consumption, particularly for children and pregnant women. Pennsylvania ranks seventh nationally in mercury pollution.
More than a third of mercury invades fish by falling into the water as pollution from coal-fired power plants falls from the sky. Congress and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have been debating since 1998 what to do about that pollution. Just as the process is about to yield rules that could reduce mercury and 58 other toxins up to 90 percent by 2008, the Bush administration has a different idea.
The President's Clear Skies Initiative - the proposed replacement for the landmark 1970 Clean Air Act - was introduced in the House and Senate last week. It would cut mercury emissions by 69 percent by 2018.
So the choice is: Eliminate more mercury sooner with the impending rules, or less, later with Bush's industry-backed plan. That shouldn't be a hard choice, Congress.
The President's program naively relies on the invisible hand of the market to reduce mercury, smog-inducing nitrogen oxide, and acid-rain-producing sulfur dioxide. Under national caps, power plants would buy and trade pollution rights. A dirty plant could buy credits from a cleaner plant, rather than improve itself. The premise is that the better angels of industry will voluntarily spew less pollution because it's in their financial interest.
The problem is that there's no guarantee the power plant closest to you would get cleaner. Measured nationally, air might be purer; locally, it may not be. The Northeast, downwind of so many dirty power plants, would be especially vulnerable.
New Jersey scrapped an experimental, open-market "cap-and-trade" program last year (after fining a participant $2 million and ordering $3 million in pollution controls). State environmental commissioner Bradley Campbell called it "deeply flawed."
In theory, a national cap-and-trade program could work for some pollutants if it had precisely drawn regions, low caps, and tight monitoring and verification. Before starting, all power plants would have to reach a reasonably clean baseline. Clear Skies lacks those safeguards.
Emissions trading actually works well with carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. But even though power plants are a top greenhouse polluter, the President is ignoring climate change.
Trading won't work with poisons like mercury, which pool at dangerous levels near their source. Only local cleanup eases health risks.
A report called "America's Children and the Environment," whose findings don't support the Clear Skies time line on mercury, has been collecting dust in an EPA drawer for several months. The EPA finally released it last week after a news leak.
The science is clear: Mercury contamination endangers children. Congress shouldn't be complicit in that risk.
Source: Editorial | Mercury rising, The Philadelphia Inquirer