mercury emissions- need facts before and after levit

[veganwitch]

levit, the new head of the epa, was talking about this is the first time mercury will be regulated. (he mentioned that mercury is harmful to pregnant women and fetuses about eight times in the 30 mins he was on but no mention to the harm it does to everyone else on the planet).

and the new york times says more mercury will be in the air.


so what is the epa plan? what are the numbers?

i have no doubt that this mercury regulation is about as environmentally sound and the "clear skies" and "healthy forests" inniatives but i wanna know the numbers myself, not just sound bites.

thanks in advance.

[adriennel]

1. sickening

it's a cap and trade program

state mercury emission levels are set

the new program will allow "cleaner" plants to sell their un-used credits to "dirtier" plants.

basically, this cap and trade program makes the mercury levels defunct. If one plant releases more mercury than they are alloted, they can buy credits from a plant that emits less than their allotted mercury levels. this will create mercury hotspots in some parts of the country.

Here's an EPA press release
http://www.epa.gov/interstateairquality/

Mercury Info
http://www.epa.gov/mercury/

mercury is highly toxic and I am starting to think it will kill us all

the EPA cannot release any information the Bush Administration does not approve of. sickening.

[veganwitch]

2. cool thanks!

yeah, i know the whole selling of credits is absolute crap.

but thanks for the info again.

[bearfartinthewoods]

3. one fact is for sure....whatever limit bush establishes, it will be the

first effort. a group i belonged to lobbied clinton for years to take up the issue and he did wait until just before he left to even take the first steps toward regulation.

[veganwitch]

4. yeah levit kept saying that...

im trying to think what was going on at the time. (seems like ages ago.)

one has to think how much more could have gotten down in his second term if the republicans didnt spend 3 years trying to impeach him.

[adriennel]

5. yeah

pretty much all of Clinton's environmental regulations are being rolled back (and then some)

my pet peeve: the "voluntary" compliance thing. It makes no sense to me: power plants will more likely comply with regulations if they are voluntary and there is an incentive to comply (other than not violating environment law and having to pay for the consequences.)

where does it state in pyschology that if given a choice, an individual or an organization will choose to do the right thing more often than being forced to do the right thing?

sounds like spin to me.

[bearfartinthewoods]

9. sorry, in this case i don't buy that

clean water/air is almost a universal issue with the indies and with many pubs. he could have used this to deflect attention and gained points. it wouldn't have taken much from him. the epa wasn't involved in the monica shit. he just didn't do it.

and even if i buy the "i was too busy defending myself' bit, what was his excuse during the first term? there is a pendulum for all issues.
environmental issues get addressed when the pendulum swings left or at least that's the way it's supposed to be.

clinton did many good things for the environment. his conservation of land and roadless initiatives were good. but all the crap he ignored is still out there and we are ten more years down the road.

[Dr.Phool]

6. The Horses Mouth

I was at the Dem convention in Orlando over the week-end. Sen Bill Nelson, said the EPA approved increasing mercury emmisions on Friday, and about a dozen equally heinous acts in the last week and a half.

[adriennel]

7. yeah, it was a banner week

I was surprised that Bush did not abolish the EPA outright...now I see that he is just using the EPA to promote his blantantly anti-environmental policies. Like Teddy Roosevelt establishing the US national parks system AND shooting hundreds of animals during one African safari trip.

Leavitt stated environmentalism needs to move from "emotional extremes" to "middle ground", reaffirming the notion that all environmentalists are radicals and insinuating we need to "work" with industry, not restrict them.

[bearfartinthewoods]

15. i'm no expert but iirc...as of the month clinton left office

there really weren't any established mercury emmision limits.

[genius]

8. I understand Florida is really bad because of a factory that

was incinerating batteries and contaminated both the air and the Gulf. Reportedly the vast majority of people in Florida have some level of mercury poisoning. I saw this in an environmental report about where not to move a while back.

[bearfartinthewoods]

12. it's much more wide spead than that

mercury is a by-product of burning coal so it's very widespread. since the main transmission to humans is via consumption of fish, fishermen and those who are interested with the health of our inland waters are extremely interested. but with the current shortage of power generation capacity, it's problematic. even if bush's measures halt the growth of emmisions it will be good because those limits will then be factored into new generating plant planning.

if clinton had even done the piddling that bush did, we'd be ahead of the game now.

[bobbieinok]

10. anyone else see/do this in jr high in the 50s????

Kids waiting to get into the building would put pennies into pill bottles filled with liquid mercury.

And voila.........'silver' pennies.

Looking back.......how did we survive? or did we?

[veganwitch]

11. in fifth grade

my teacher had a baby food jar full of mercury and would dropp it from about 2-3 inches into our hands to prove/surprise about the weight of it. just image what would have if it was dropped?

and then he left everyone stick their finger in it.

woohoo!

[bearfartinthewoods]

14. i can beat that...

i put a dime into a machine at the world's fair and paid a quarter to have it irradiated and popped into a plastic holder to use as a key chain....

[ProfessorGAC]

13. He Was A Duplicitous Rat

Three times he mentioned that the Bushies couldn't have been making things worse, because it was never regulated before. If they relaxed the proposed standard, that IS making it worse.

Secondly, 4 times he mentioned that the Clinton administration was 4 and a half years late with these regulations, and signed the order 10 days before leaving office.

I kept wanting to ask him, that if that were true, wouldn't that mean that 41 was 12 and a half years late and that Reagan was 20 and a half years late? Of course, that might explain why people thought the Reaganites were environmentally unfriendly. This guy, without being bright enough to know it, was condemning his own hero.

What a maroon.
The Professor