Republicans take aim at EPA’s cement pollution regulations

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson

The House will likely vote this week on measures to delay or weaken Environmental Protection Agency rules reducing air pollution from industrial boilers, incinerators and cement plants.

House Republicans leaders have taken aim at a new EPA rule that would require cement producers, incinerators and industrial boilers to reduce their mercury and other harmful emissions by 90 percent. The rule is set to go into effect in 2013.

Republican called on President Barack Obama today to urge the Democratic-controlled Senate to support a measure that would delay or weaken the new standards. Politicians also asked him to sign the bills if they make it to his desk.

“There are reasonable regulations that protect our children and help keep our environment clean,” they wrote in a letter to the president. “But there are also excessive regulations that unnecessarily increase costs for consumers and small businesses, and make it harder for our economy to create jobs. The rules addressed by the bills the House will consider this week are examples of such harmful government excess.”

The bills, which the House could take up tomorrow, are part of Republicans’ push to reduce and prevent regulations that they see as unreasonably stringent and having excessive economic costs. The bills up for consideration this week would delay the cement and boiler rules and require the EPA to reissue them.

Republicans have sought to block, delay or weaken a number of EPA rules, including some meant to reduce power plant emissions of mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. Republicans called the new requirements “job-destroying regulations,” and they have also said the new cement rule would cause 20 percent of U.S. cement-making plants to shut down in the next two years.

But environmental groups such as the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council say Republicans are trying to do more than reduce excessive regulation. They accuse Republicans of trying to gut the Clean Air Act, the law that gives the EPA its authority to regulate air pollution.

The two House bills up for consideration this week do more than simply delay rules for boiler, incinerator and cement plant pollution, John Walke, a Washington-based NRDC official who directs the group’s Clean Air Program, wrote in a blog posting.

“Cement plants and industrial boilers are two of the largest industrial emitters of mercury in the United States,” he wrote. “Giving these industries a free pass, while over 100 other industries have already controlled their toxic pollution, makes no sense and will seriously harm Americans’ health.”

The House has already passed a bill, known as the “TRAIN Act,” to require a new interagency committee to analyze how several EPA rules would impact energy prices, businesses’ finances and electricity supplies. The rule would also delay two upcoming rules for several years – one for reducing power plant emissions that can cross state lines and another for reducing mercury emissions.

President Obama has threatened to veto the TRAIN Act, saying the bill’s required analyses would duplicate some studies that have been already performed. The bill likely won’t make it through the Senate. House Democrats say the bill merely adds another layer of bureaucracy to slow down and weaken rules that can save tens of thousands of lives each yet and deliver health benefits that far exceed the costs.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has also said the TRAIN Act, passed with an amendment from Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., would “weaken or destroy” the agency’s ability to regulate mercury and other toxic pollutants from power plants.