5
EPA takes aim at cement plants
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency logo
To view this content, Javascript must be enabled and Adobe Flash Player must be installed.
TEXT OF STORY
Kai Ryssdal: We've known for decades that mercury is incredibly toxic. The government regulates factory emissions of the stuff. And the newest in that category as of this week is cement plants.
From the Marketplace Sustainability Desk, Scott Tong reports.
Scott Tong: Cement is the glue that holds together concrete, which as the industry puts it, is the foundation of the construction economy.
Andrew O'Hare: In fact, it is the second most used material on earth, second to water.
Andrew O'Hare is with Portland Cement Association. He says plants can't avoid spewing mercury; it's in the limestone that gets crushed and heated to make cement. Regulations will force plants to install expensive pollution filtering equipment -- or shut down.
O'Hare: We were looking at shuttering as many as 40 cement plants, which represents about 40 percent of our current U.S. cement-manufacturing capacity.
On the other side, EPA says the rules will cut mercury emissions every year by 16 tons. And this is toxic stuff: Remember, even a broken old-school thermometer is cause for alarm.
John Walk at the Natural Resources Defense Council is a fan of the new rules. He's an even bigger fan of the Obama administration's EPA.
John Walk: The mindset at EPA under the current administration is vastly different than the deregulatory agenda of the Bush administration.
And the agency's just getting started. It's expected to put out mercury rules for coal-fired power plants, which may put the oldest plants out of business. And greenhouse gas rules are coming, too. Congress hasn't acted, but the EPA believes it can regulate carbon dioxide under the existing Clean Air Law, and the regulators have withstood a recent court challenge.
In Washington, I'm Scott Tong for Marketplace.
Maybe we need to think outside the box: if we want to impose more costs on ourselves for the purpose of environmental management, let's not give the price advantage to other countries. Instead, if any other country wants to sell its goods here, it must also use the same environmental restrictions.
It's worth noting that Mr. O'Hare from the Portland Cement Association said in this story that they "were" looking at shuttering as many as 40 cement plants -- a claim they made about EPA's PROPOSED rules.
When EPA issued its final rules this week, they were weaker than originally proposed and the Association revised that assertion down to 10. And EPA disputes even that lower claim, while acknowledging that as new kilns come on-line, older, less efficient and more costly to operate kilns could retire.
First, air toxics cleanup standards for cement kilns were issued this week, over a decade past the statutory deadline, after the 1999 Clinton EPA rules and then 2006 Bush EPA rules were both struck down in court for squarely violating the Clean Air Act following public health group lawsuits. Had protective rules been issued lawfully the 1st or even 2nd time, they would not have been issued in the middle of a recession. Cement kilns have had a free pass for a decade longer than other industries that followed the law.
Second, the actual compliance date for this week's rules for existing cement kilns is not until 2013 with the possibility of extensions until 2014.
Finally, carbon dioxide is an actual pollutant, recognized by the Supreme Court as such and regulated by the Clean Air Act. Its hazards to public health and the environment are well-documented by hundreds of studies.
The newness of a recognized pollutant is not a reason for ignoring it, as we have learned with examples from asbestos to DDT to PCBs to nano particles today.
Many things are necessary for life, but too much of something in the wrong place can be harmful: iron is an essential nutrient, but too much of it is toxic to our bodies; water is vital, but too much in your lungs causes pulmonary edema or death; e coli is a natural human byproduct but we regulate it in our water and food supplies. And many air pollutants are regulated for their indirect effects (e.g., as ozone pre-cursors) rather than their direct effects, but they are still harmful.
The public will benefit tremendously from the EPA rules, with monetized public benefits as high as $18 for every $1 in industry compliance costs.
First: While I'm in favor of improving the environment, is the middle of a recession really the time to be passing rules that will make manufacturing even more expensive?
Second: The difference between this action and the carbon dioxide regulation it's planning to begin is that mercury is an actual pollutant, with well-documented effects, that is toxic even in small quantities, and has been recognized as such for nearly a century. Carbon dioxide is necessary for life and is not directly harmful, and its effects on the climate have not been well established.
