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Forum Post: An air update. Is the whole country on board?

Posted 12 years ago on March 13, 2012, 3:02 p.m. EST by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

March 13, 2012

Dear Dan,

Thank you for contacting me about the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) mercury and air toxics standards. I share your concern about mercury pollution and appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts with me on this important issue.

Pollution from power plants and other major sources can stay in the air we breathe and aggravate health problems for the elderly, children, and others with heart or respiratory diseases. Breathing polluted air is particularly dangerous to the nearly 30 million adults and children in the United States who have been diagnosed with asthma. Toxic air pollutants can also form acid rain and ground-level ozone, which damage buildings, trees, crops, wildlife, lakes, and aquatic life.

In 1970, in response to increasing health problems and acid rain, Congress created the EPA and passed the Clean Air Act. This historic legislation gave the federal government authority to regulate air pollution across the country. Since then, government, industry, and environmental groups have worked together to establish and implement a variety of programs to reduce air pollution levels for a range of pollutants.

Under the Clean Air Act, on December 16, 2011, the EPA issued the Mercury and Air Toxics Rule, the first federal standard to require power plants to limit emissions of toxic air pollutants like mercury, arsenic, and heavy metals. The standards would require all power plants that are not in compliance with the Clean Air Act to install maximum available control technology that would reduce their toxic air pollution. Power plants have four years to comply with the rule.

While the Mercury and Air Toxic Standards requirements are stringent for those facilities lacking controls, 56 percent of existing coal-fired power plants are already in compliance because of other EPA regulations or state mercury and air toxics rules. For instance, in response to a 2006 Minnesota state mercury law, Xcel Energy installed dry scrubber systems, which will reduce SO2 emissions from its coal plants by 90 percent. The technology required for power plants to meet the standard has been in use by solid waste incinerators for over 15 years. The EPA projects that this standard will cost an annual $10.9 billion, and would create $59 billion to $140 billion annually in benefits, while avoiding 11,000 nonfatal heart attacks, 120,000 cases of aggravated asthma, and developmental effects on children, including effects on IQ, learning, and memory. The average consumer would see an electricity bill increase of just $3 to $4 dollars per month for a rule that would create about 31,000 short-term construction jobs and 9,000 long-term utility jobs.

Thank you again for contacting me on this issue, and please don't hesitate to do so in the future on this or any other matter of concern to you.

Sincerely,

Signature

Al Franken United States Senator

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[-] 0 points by po6059 (72) 12 years ago

dumb al didn't write the letter. a staffer , group of staffers did.

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