12-28-2018, 05:06 PM
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/28/climate/mercury-coal-pollution-regulations.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes
I like to monetize things as much as the next person as it makes it much easier to analyze the effects of policy decisions. However, when we look at costs and benefits only through the lens of the green accounting visor, it makes it easy to ignore the human element of the decisions. It allows policy makers to detach themselves from the lives being impacted.
Quote:WASHINGTON — The Trump administration announced on Friday a plan designed to make it easier for coal-fired power plants, after nearly a decade of restrictions, to release into the atmosphere more mercury and other pollutants linked to developmental disorders and respiratory illnesses.
The limits on mercury, set in 2011, were the first federal standards to restrict some of the most hazardous pollutants emitted by coal plants and were considered one of former President Barack Obama’s signature environmental achievements. Since then, scientists have said, mercury pollution from power plants has declined more than 80 percent nationwide.
President Trump’s new proposal does not repeal the regulation, known as the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, but it would lay the groundwork for doing so by weakening a key legal justification for the measure. The long-term impact would be significant: It would weaken the ability of the E.P.A. to impose new regulations in the future by adjusting the way the agency measures the benefits of curbing pollutants, giving less weight to the potential health gains.
In announcing the proposed rule, the Environmental Protection Agency said in a statement that the cost of cutting mercury from power plants “dwarfs” the monetary benefits. The proposal, which the acting E.P.A. administrator, Andrew Wheeler, signed on Thursday, is expected to appear in the federal register in the coming weeks. The public will have 60 days to comment on it before a final rule is issued.
I like to monetize things as much as the next person as it makes it much easier to analyze the effects of policy decisions. However, when we look at costs and benefits only through the lens of the green accounting visor, it makes it easy to ignore the human element of the decisions. It allows policy makers to detach themselves from the lives being impacted.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
