by Dominique Browning

I’ve spent the last nine months giving birth to a new organization—really an act of incredible team gestation—called Moms Clean Air Force. Labor took place on my kitchen table—and before I start hyperventilating, I’ll leave off the birth metaphors. Let me just say this work has been some of the most exhilarating I’ve ever done.

I’ve been meeting moms from across the country. Moms—Republicans, Democrats, Independents and Apoliticals, at least until now—who are fed up with the status quo. Sick of dollars first, babies second. Moms in Alabama who don’t want to make a choice between jobs and their children’s health. Moms in Ohio who are alarmed by research linking behavioral issues to air pollution.  Moms in Arizona making emergency room runs with asthmatic children. Moms in Pennsylvania outraged that the shale rush is fouling their skies. Moms in Michigan who want their teenagers to have job opportunities in clean energy—without having to leave their home state. Moms in New Hampshire who just want to eat tuna fish again. Moms in Dallas who are worried about that brown bubble of smog over their homes.

We are moms who don’t believe the science deniers. We deny that the situation is hopeless. We can do something about climate change. We respect science—and doctors—and we listen when they warn us of danger. We know exactly who is going to be around to suffer the impacts of extreme weather that will make today’s headlines about floods, droughts and heat waves look quaint. Our little ones. The loves of our lives. We know that the crazy stuff we are seeing today is just the beginning of global warming. And it is already bad enough.

Is all this terrifying? Overwhelming? You bet. Moms today feel like they have to be EPA, FDA, and USDA rolled into one. But we know it is impossible to “shop” our way out of pollution problems. There isn’t an air filter on the market that can protect us. Money can buy the right to pollute. But money cannot buy clean air.

 

Being a good mom means being an engaged citizen. The only way to get strong regulations is to demand them. Moms hear “pollution regulations” and we think, Good: Protection. That’s why, Republicans and Democrats, we have rallied around Administrator Lisa Jackson—the mom of a severely asthmatic son. She has done a historic job of enhancing the Clean Air Act.  Her work will have a long legacy. We’re grateful for her vision and courage.

Do politicians really want to make their mothers angry? Most of us aren’t marching in the streets or getting arrested—yet. But we’re signing petitions, writing letters, meeting with our political representatives, and letting them know: Listen to your mothers. We share the air. Stop polluting it.

Mother Love is the original renewable. The supply is endless.  We hope Washington gets a charge out of it.

Dominique Browning is the Senior Director of Moms Clean Air Force.

As U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administration Lisa Jackson announces the first-ever Clean Air Act rules to limit mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants, Republicans are already attacking this historic advance for public health. The health risks of this potent neurotoxin are enormously well-documented. Methylmercury from coal pollution accumulates in fish, poisoning pregnant women and small children. Mercury can harm children’s developing brains, including effects on memory, attention, language, and fine motor and visual spatial skills. But Republicans are willing to argue that the profits of the coal industry outweigh the well-being of America’s children.

“There are already strict regulations relating to mercury emissions,” Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY), the chair of the House energy and power subcommittee, falsely claimed in an interview today with Fox News. “Obviously whatever controls the EPA has in place are not working if our fish are tainted,” Fox’s Alisyn Camerota shot back. Whitfield then made the false claim that “there is not going to be any benefit from this new regulation in reducing mercury levels”:

CAMEROTA: As I’m sure you know, for the past years doctors have been advising pregnant women not to eat any fish when they are pregnant because the mercury levels are so high in fish. So what to do about this? Obviously whatever controls the EPA has in place are not working if our fish are tainted.

WHITFIELD: Well, let me just say this to you, the scientists that testified before our committee were unanimous in the view that there is not going to be any benefit from this new regulation in reducing mercury levels. All of the benefits were calculated from the reduction of particulate matter, which is already covered under ambient air quality standard regulations. This is about closing coal plants, and that’s precisely what it is about.

Watch it:

Whitfield and energy committee chair Fred Upton (R-MI) have assiduously avoided having medical experts testify about the EPA’s mercury rules, instead parading utility and coal industry officials before their committee to make exaggerated claims about the costs of upgrading power plants to protect children’s health. At one such hearing, Rep. Joe Barton denied the “medical negative” of mercury exposure.

The glimmer of fact in Whitfield’s claims is that the health costs of mercury poisoning of our nation’s children over decades of unlimited coal pollution are difficult to quantify. Mercury poisoning is rarely fatal and hard to detect, but causes undeniable, insidious developmental harm to fetuses and babies.

Cost-benefit analyses conducted by epidemiologists for the new rule emphasize the equally real live-saving impact of cutting the deadly soot pollution from the few dozen ancient coal plants that emit most of the nation’s mercury pollution. By conceding that cutting the particulate matter would save thousands of lives, Whitfield was in effect admitting that current ambient air quality standards are not sufficient to protect American health either.

Economists are beginning to recognize that the costs of coal pollution outweigh the benefits of “cheap” coal electricity. Unless the coal industry cleans up its act, coal power is making the American economy sick.

Long-delayed rules to limit toxins like mercury and arsenic from coal-burning power plants will be approved today, after twenty years of delay that protected coal utility profits at the expense of American health. The Los Angeles Times reports that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will finalize its mercury rule today, marking the end of an era of deliberate pollution despite the scientific knowledge that pregnant women and small children were being poisoned:

The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to approve a tough new rule on Friday to limit emissions of mercury, arsenic and other toxins from the country’s power plants, according to people with knowledge of the new standard. Though mercury is a known neurotoxin profoundly harmful to children and pregnant women, the air toxins rule has been more than 20 years in the making, repeatedly stymied because of objections from coal-burning utilities about the cost of installing pollution control equipment.

In 1990 the bipartisan legislation that amended the Clean Air Act ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to set standards for the emission of mercury, arsenic, and other toxic air pollution from power plants. Although a court decree mandated EPA standards by 2000, the rules were repeatedly delayed again. In 2006, the Bush administration released rules that were thrown out by the courts for failing to protect the public health. The health risks of mercury and arsenic are enormously well-documented. In the 21 years since the EPA was ordered to issue these rules, 17 states have independently acted to limit mercury emissions from power plants. Coal-fired power plants alone produce 772 million pounds of airborne toxins every year—2.5 pounds’ worth for every American.

Even with this finalized Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule, power plants will have years to comply. Upgrading power plants to cut air toxics is expected to create 31,000 construction jobs to 158,000 jobs installing pollution controls. “Jobs are created” when power companies are forced to clean up their plants, Mike Morris, CEO of American Electric Power has recognized.

Of course, the primary economic benefit of the mercury rule comes from its life-saving impact. Methylmercury from coal pollution accumulates in fish, poisoning pregnant women and small children. Mercury can harm children’s developing brains, including effects on memory, attention, language, and fine motor and visual spatial skills. Upgrades to the aged and dirty coal plants will also significantly reduce harmful particle pollution, preventing hundreds of thousands of illnesses and up to 17,000 premature deaths each year. “The ‘monetized’ value of these and certain other health benefits would amount to $55–146 billion per year,” the Economic Policy Institute states.

Republicans in the House and Senate are pushing hard for two polluter poison-pill provisions in the payroll tax cut extension bill. Guaranteeing a year-end flood of contributions from the fossil fuel industry, the GOP has attached language to override the Obama administration’s actions on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and air-pollution rules for industrial boilers, known as the Boiler MACT rules. In a striking but incomplete victory for the climate movement, the Obama administration has extended the review of the Keystone XL pipeline until 2013. Fighting intense polluter lobbyist pressure, EPA has announced watered-down Boiler MACT rules that exempt 99 percent of industrial boilers from having stricter limits on mercury, dioxin, particulate matter, hydrogen chloride, and carbon monoxide.

If passed, these love-letters to the oil and coal industries would be devastating to public health and the environment, risking infant brain damage and poisoned aquifers.

On Fox News Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) admitted the Keystone XL and Boiler MACT poison pills threaten the passage of the payroll bill. He told Wallace that the payroll tax cut extension “obviously” will pass, but claimed Republicans have added these pollution poison pills on a “bipartisan basis“:

But we also need to have something in there that prevents the loss of jobs and something that will create the jobs. And that’s why we inserted Boiler MACT, supported on a bipartisan basis and the Keystone pipeline supported on a bipartisan basis. One would save jobs, one would create jobs right now.

McConnell is technically not lying about the bipartisan support, as there are a handful of Democrats who have cast their lot in with polluter interests instead of people’s health like the Republicans on both issues. However, neither the Keystone nor Boiler MACT poison pills would save or create jobs — studies have found that the economic and societal impact of their increased pollution would far outweigh any short-term benefits of allowing polluters to keep dumping waste into the atmosphere and water without consequence.

President Obama has said unequivocally that he will “reject” any attempt to include the Keystone language in the payroll bill, but has not issued a similar veto threat on Boiler MACT.

Yesterday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved the Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act, which “goes beyond its commonly stated farm dust mission to exempt a variety of situations from Clean Air Act authority,” including particulate pollution from open-pit mining, lead smelters and chemical and industrial facilities.

Republicans are running a shell game based on numerous lies:

– Even though dust related to industrial agriculture can be toxic and dangerous, conservatives like Newt Gingrich mock the threat.

– Even though the Environmental Protection Agency isn’t planning any new regulations, Republicans claim the EPA is trying to issue a new rule.

– Using “farm dust” as cover, Republicans write legislative language to exempt toxic pollution from mining and other industrial activities.

The “farm dust” scam is pernicious and deadly. But it’s a polluter lobbyist’s dream.

by David Roberts, in a Grist cross-post

Political reporter John Broder had a long piece in The New York Times [Thursday] chronicling Obama’s decision to delay a tighter national smog standard. I have no desire to relitigate that fight, but I do want to pluck out one particular bit of Broder’s piece to illustrate a point.

In a recent piece kvetching about media coverage of Solyndra, I said: “Republican talking points are delivered as first-order news. Liberal talking points are wrapped in meta-news about liberals and their talking points.” Let’s look at an example — not the biggest deal in the world, but quite illustrative.

Here’s the 11th paragraph of Broder’s piece:

The standard for ozone was last set in 2008 by the Bush administration at a level of 75 parts per billion, above the range of 60 to 70 recommended by the E.P.A.’s scientific advisory panel at the time, but never enacted. Environmental and public health groups challenged the Bush standard in court, saying it would endanger human health and had been tainted by political interference. Smog levels have declined sharply over the last 40 years, but each incremental improvement comes at a significant cost to business and government.

Look closely at those last two sentences. They contain four assertions:

1. Bush’s ozone standard would harm public health.
2. Bush’s ozone standard was subject to political interference.
3. Smog levels have declined over the last 40 years.
4. Each smog reduction imposes “significant costs” on “business.”

Now let’s re-order them based on how well they are supported by evidence:

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