Townhall...
EPA: Environmental
Propaganda Activists
by Willie Soon
6/6/2011
Editors’ note: This piece is co-authored by Paul Driessen.
The Environmental Protection Agency recently issued 946 pages of new
rules, requiring that U.S. power plants sharply reduce (already low)
emissions of mercury and 83 other air pollutants. EPA Administrator
Lisa Jackson claims that, while the regulations will cost electricity
producers $10.9 billion annually, they will save 17,000 lives and
generate up to $140 billion in health benefits.
There is no factual basis for these assertions. To build its case, EPA
systematically ignored evidence and ignored clinical studies that
contradict its regulatory agenda, which is to punish hydrocarbon use.
Mercury (Hg) has always existed naturally in Earth’s environment. A
2009 study found numerous spikes (and drops) in mercury deposition in
Antarctic ice over the past 650,000-years. Mercury is found in air,
water, rocks, soil and in trees, which absorb it from the environment.
This is why our bodies evolved with proteins and antioxidants that help
protect us from this and other potential contaminants.
A further defense comes from selenium, which is found in fish and
animals. Its strong attraction to mercury molecules protects fish and
people against buildups of methylmercury, mercury’s biologically active
and more toxic form. Thus, the 200,000,000 tons of mercury naturally
present in seawater have never posed a danger to any living being, even
though they could theoretically be converted into methylmercury.
Modern technologies enable us to detect infinitesimal amounts in air
and water. However, quantities of mercury measured in lake waters are
often no more than 0.00000001 gram of mercury per liter. Lab
technicians typically wear special garments when measuring mercury
levels, not to protect themselves – but to ensure accurate
measurements, because even breathing on a sample can triple a reading!
How do America’s coal-burning power plants enter into the picture?
The latest government, university and independent studies reveal that
those power plants emit an estimated 41-48 tons of mercury per year.
However, US forest fires emit at least 44 tons per year; cremation of
human remains discharges 26 tpy; Chinese power plants eject 400 tpy;
and volcanoes, subsea vents, geysers and other sources spew out
9,000-10,000 additional tons per year!
All these emissions enter the global atmospheric system and become part
of the US air mass. Thus, US power plants account for less than 0.5% of
all the mercury in the air Americans breathe. Even eliminating every
milligram of this mercury will do nothing about the other 99.5% in
America’s atmosphere. And yet, in the face of these minuscule risks,
EPA nevertheless demands that utility companies spend billions every
year retrofitting coal-fired power plants that produce half of all US
electricity, and 70-98% of electricity in twelve states. Its regulators
simultaneously ignore the positive results of medical studies that
clearly show its new restrictions are not needed and will not improve
people’s health.
According to the Centers for Disease Control’s National Health and
Nutrition Examination Survey, which actively monitors mercury exposure,
blood mercury counts for US women and children decreased steadily
1999-2008, placing today’s counts well below the already excessively
“safe” level established by EPA.
A 17-year evaluation of mercury risk to babies and children, by the
Seychelles Children Development Study, found “no measurable cognitive
or behavioral effects” in children who eat several servings of ocean
fish every week, much more than most Americans do.
The World Health Organization and US Agency for Toxic Substances and
Disease Registry assessed these findings in setting mercury risk
standards that are 2-3 times less restrictive than EPA’s. Under WHO and
ATSDR guidelines, no American children are even remotely at risk from
mercury.
EPA ignored these findings. Instead, the agency based its “safe”
mercury criteria on a study of Faroe Islanders, whose diet is far
removed from our own. They eat few fruits and vegetables, but do feast
on pilot whale meat and blubber that is laced with mercury and
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) – but very low in selenium. The study
has limited relevance to US populations. Finally, EPA maintains that
mercury deposition, its conversion to methylmercury, and MeHg
accumulation in fish and humans is a simple process that can be
controlled by curtailing emissions from US power plants. However,
mercury emissions (from all sources) and raw mercury levels in fresh or
ocean waters are only part of the story.
Complex, nonlinear interactions among at least 50 natural variables
control the biological and chemical processes that govern elemental
mercury conversion to methylmercury and MeHg accumulation in fish.
Those variables, and selenium levels in fish tissue, are beyond
anyone’s ability to control.
As a result, the EPA’s actions can be counted on to achieve only one
thing – which is to further advance the Obama administration’s
oft-stated goal of penalizing hydrocarbon use, making coal-based
electricity prices “skyrocket,” and driving a transition to unreliable
renewable energy.
The proposed standards will do nothing to reduce exaggerated threats
from mercury and other air pollutants. Indeed, the rules will worsen,
rather than improve America’s health – especially for young children
and women of child-bearing age. Not only will they raise heating, air
conditioning and food costs; they will scare people away from
nutritious fish that should be in everyone’s diet.
America needs affordable, reliable electricity. It needs better health
and nutrition. It needs an EPA that focuses on real risks, instead of
wasting hard-earned taxpayer and consumer dollars fabricating dangers
and evidence.
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