EPA’s Latest Water Attack: Protecting Polluting Power Plants
EPA’s Latest Water Attack: Protecting Polluting Power Plants.
I wish this formula was an exaggeration, but the examples are piling up so fast, I don’t think it is.
Today’s example is Administrator Pruitt’s plan to indefinitely postpone limits adopted in 2015 on the toxic pollution that electric power plants can discharge into waterways.
As our friends at Earthjustice explain, these facilities dump enormous amounts of very dangerous stuff into waters, putting people who drink contaminated water or eat fish from these water bodies at risk of a host of health problems, including loss of IQ and cancer.
EPA held a public hearing on its delay proposal today.
Our supporters swim and boat in, fish from, and get drinking water that flows through, waterways at risk of pollution from toxic power plant discharges.
Consequently, the agency’s push to delay compliance lacks any reasonable basis.
Because of these serious threats, controlling power plants’ toxic pollution creates significant benefits.
EPA estimated the benefits of the standards would have been as much as $566 million a year, compared to $480 million in costs, and the agency only monetized 13 out of 24 categories of benefits that it identified the rule would have.
Please abandon it immediately.