Energy

EPA Officials Leak Details Of Mercury Rule Rollback

Shutterstock

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Jason Hopkins Immigration and politics reporter
Font Size:

The White House is preparing to reverse regulations covering mercury emissions, the latest move in President Donald Trump’s steady rollback of Obama-era environmental rules.

The Environmental Protection Agency has prepared and delivered a legal proposal to the White House that would rollback regulations pertaining to mercury, a toxic chemical that is emitted from coal-fired power plants. The administration plans to weaken this rule by changing they way officials analyze its costs and benefits.

First established in 2011 by the Obama administration, the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) finds the EPA must factor in additional “co-benfits” when evaluating a regulation’s cost compared to its expected health benefits. The Obama White House was able to justify expensive regulation to the coal industry by adding additional health benefits to its cost-and-analysis evaluation.

“The MATS Rule was an egregious example of the Obama administration’s indifference toward required cost benefit analysis,” EPA spokesman John Konkus told The Washington Post. “EPA knows these issues are of importance to the regulated community and the public at large and is committed to a thoughtful and transparent regulatory process in addressing them.”

The Obama administration originally found that forcing coal-fired plants to use the mercury control technology would cost an estimated $9.6 billion a year — the most expensive clean air regulation. This cost was far higher than the expected annual health savings of $6 million. However, the administration was able to rack up these health saving numbers by enabling the MATS Rule, with co-benefits adding another $80 billion, according to The New York Times. (RELATED: Trump Administration Rolls Back Obama-Era Offshore Drilling Regulation)

The Trump administration’s new evaluation eliminates this “co-benefit” factor, sharply reducing official health savings of implementing the mercury rule.

Environmental advocacy groups are attacking the expected rollback and have pledged to take the issue to court.

“What [acting EPA administrator Andrew] Wheeler and [EPA air office head Bill] Wehrum are pursuing — the fraudulent denial of real-world benefits from clean air and climate safeguards — is the unholy grail of EPA haters and polluting industry lobbyists for decades,” stated John Walke, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The mercury rule change is just the latest in a growing list of environmental regulation rollbacks by the Trump administration. The White House in September rescinded a methane rule and slapped down incoming train regulation —  both established under the Obama administration.

Follow Jason on Twitter.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel