"Activists" offered $50 to wear pro-coal shirts.

Apparently unable to find real activists, the coal industry paid astroturfers $50 to wear pro-coal t-shirts at an Environmental Protection Agency hearing yesterday.

The EPA hearings, held yesterday in Chicago and Washington, D.C., were focused on the agency’s first-ever carbon standards for new power plants. The industry has adamantly opposed these standards, as well as standards on mercury — a pollutant that even Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) admits is harmful.

This year, coal is throwing around its weight by spending tens of millions of dollars on media advertising and political contributions.

Coal is also engaging in fake advocacy campaigns, known as astroturfing. In a Craigslist ad found by the Environmental Law & Policy Center in Chicago, a coal group promised participants $50 to “wear a t-shirt in support of an energy project.” Upon further digging, the Sierra Club blog pieced together much of the deleted Craigslist ad:

People needed to attend a public meeting (Tinley Park /Chicago)

Reply to: px6mq-3031150602@gigs.craigslist.org (email address no longer valid)

Looking for people THIS THURSDAY, MAY 24 who want to make a couple of dollars for a few hours of your time.

All you need to do is wear a t-shirt in support of an energy project for two hours during the public meeting. We will be departing the Tinely Park convention center at 8:15 am for the meeting and we will be back by 1:30 pm. For your time we will pay you $50 cash and provide you lunch once we return to the convention center.

If you can’t beat ‘em, cheat ‘em.

The Environment Protection Agency’s landmark mercury and air toxics standards, announced in December, would reduce pollutants from coal power plants, saving 11,000 lives, prevent 130,000 asthma attacks and avoid 4,700 heart attacks. But Sen. James Inhofe has found the required 30 Senators to bring the rule to a Senate vote.

In an event with FreedomWorks, a participant posed the question to Inhofe (at 27:00): “Can we really trust companies to protect our natural resources without the institution of the EPA?” Inhofe, a climate denier who has attempted to circumvent EPA rules because they lack “science,” did not think anyone has said the EPA doesn’t have a place:

INHOFE: I don’t think anyone has said you want to eliminate the EPA altogether. If you look at the Clean Air regulations they were good. They worked. If you look back to the Bush administration we had the clear skies act that they refused to act on that would have done away with SO2, NOx, mercury, real pollutants. We’re not talking about that. There needs to be some regulation there but the regulation needs to be based on science and theirs is not based on science.

But Inhofe really doesn’t need to look far to find many Republicans who want to “abolish” the EPA. Last year, ThinkProgress spoke to six current and recent GOP lawmakers aiming to end the agency, and Senate Republicans voted to end the EPA by combining it with the Department of Energy, with 15 GOP co-sponsors. And Rep. Stephen Fincher recently said “We must cut the EPA’s legs off.”

And of course, Inhofe has attempted to block coal and oil oversight — the climate denier has claimed there’s no science for it. However, Inhofe’s interests do not lie with the hundreds of thousands of Americans who would benefit from mercury reduction, but with his oil and coal donors.

by Jessica Goad

A recent study from the Environmental Protection Agency showing that chemicals from hydraulic fracturing had contaminated groundwater has just been validated by an independent hydrology expert.

The impact of natural gas drilling — particularly hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” — on drinking water and groundwater has been heavily debated. It has also been one of the most serious PR issues for the oil and gas industry.

In December 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency found official evidence that poisonous chemicals from fracking had contaminated water near drill rigs in Pavillion, Wyoming. That study has now been backed up by an independent expert. In a report released today, commissioned by several environmental groups, Dr. Tom Myers writes that:

After consideration of the evidence presented in the EPA report and in URS (2009 and 2010), it is clear that hydraulic fracturing (fracking [Kramer 2011]) has caused pollution of the Wind River formation and aquifer… The EPA’s conclusion is sound.

Myers then details the Pavillion area’s unique geology and water pathways, as well as the shoddy construction of the wells that likely contributed to water contamination.  He also outlines a number of ways that EPA can improve on its analysis and continue to collect critical data.

When EPA released the draft findings last December, the natural gas industry and its elected allies were quick to pounce and attacked it as “scientifically questionable,” “reckless,” and lacking  “a definitive conclusion.”

Importantly, Myers notes in his report that:

The situation at Pavillion is not an analogue for other gas plays because the geology and regulatory framework may be different.

Nevertheless, it is a reminder for politicians like Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe who continue to claim that there has “never been one case — documented case — of groundwater contamination.”

However, the lack of public data makes it difficult to gather evidence of drinking water contamination.  As New York Times reporter Ian Urbina noted in an investigation last August, researchers often are:

…unable to investigate many suspected cases because their details were sealed from the public when energy companies settled lawsuits with landowners.

The oil and gas industry is exempt from portions of a number of environmental laws, including the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Clean Air Act.

Jessica Goad is Manager of Research and Outreach for the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Photo: Josh Lopez

by Daniel J. Weiss

On April 13, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed the first carbon dioxide pollution limits for new coal fired power plants. This action launched a sixty day public comment period for the public to let EPA know that it supported the proposal.

Just ten days later, on April 24^th, a broad coalition of clean air, labor and other progressive organizations delivered over 700,000 comments in favor of the proposal to EPA.

The groups delivered the comments to EPA Deputy Administrator Robert Perciasepe:

“Setting strong limits on carbon pollution is not only critical to public health and the environment, but will also diminish the impacts of climate change and has broad public support as evidenced by numerous polls and the massive total of more than 735,000 comments submitted thus far in support of strong limits on carbon pollution.”

The comments expressed support for limits on carbon dioxide pollution from new and existing power plants.

These organizations, including the Center for American Progress Action Fund, plan to deliver “an even larger number of public comments before the close of the 60-day public comment period, June 12, 2012.”

Big electricity and coal companies are spending millions of dollars against these public health safeguards. It is critical that EPA continue to hear from Americans that they support reducing carbon pollution from power plants.

Please submit a public comment to the EPA in support of strong carbon pollution rules, urging further action to clean up our air and thanking them for their proposed safeguards. Take action here for clean air.

Daniel J. Weiss is a Senior Fellow with the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

by Rachel Wilf and Jorge Madrid

All Americans can celebrate the Environmental Protection Agency’s commitment to ensure everyone can breathe clean air. But this commitment particularly benefits communities of color. Currently, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans are especially vulnerable to air pollution’s health effects. Within the last year, however, the EPA instituted new mercury and air toxics standards and restrictions on cross-state air pollution. Last week the EPA also proposed carbon emissions limits on coal plants—a historic first step to slow the growth of the major pollutant responsible for global climate change. The EPA’s new policies could improve racial health disparities by shielding millions of Americans of color from further exposure to pollutants.

Air pollution causes severe health problems. Mercury, a potent neurotoxin emitted by many coal-fired power plants, can impair brain development in children and harm hearts, brains, kidneys, and lungs in adults. And ozone and particulate matter have been linked to poor birth outcomes as well as respiratory and cardiovascular disease. By contributing to global warming, carbon emissions increase temperatures and amplify the health effects of ozone and other pollutants. Carbon emissions can also lead directly to a worsening of asthma symptoms.

For many people of color, this air pollution is an unavoidable feature of daily life because they are more likely to live and work in the nation’s most polluted cities. According to a recent nationwide study, non-Hispanic blacks are “consistently overrepresented” in the counties with the worst air quality in the nation. In 2006 Hispanics were 165 percent and Asian Americans 169 percent more likely to live in counties with unhealthy levels of particulate matter than were whites and were also more likely to live in areas with unhealthy ozone levels. An analysis of polluting facilities in California found that 62 percent of residents living within six miles of a petroleum refinery, cement plant, or power plant were people of color. And a startling 68 percent of African Americans live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant, compared to only 56 percent of the white population.

Read more

by Melanie Hart and Jeffrey Cavanagh

This Earth Day is a great opportunity to take stock of the progress we are making around the world on environmental protection. Here in the United States, much can be learned by comparing our environmental progress to China, where they are just now starting down a path we took back in 1970.

Taking stock of our environmental progress is particularly important in an election year, when some politicians and political hopefuls are pointing to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as an example of wasteful government spending and overregulation. The reality is that our regulatory system is what separates us from the citizens in China, where air pollution and lead poising are the norm and environmental problems corrode the quality of life in ways that we have not faced in decades.

We certainly hope China manages to address its environmental problems, not only for the sake of the Chinese people but also because China’s problems harm us as well. China is now the largest contributor to global carbon dioxide pollution, and jet streams are bringing some Chinese pollution to the United States. Mercury emissions from China’s coal-fired power plants are building up in U.S. watersheds, for example, and particulate pollution from China appears to be inhibiting rain and snow production and reducing water supplies in some California cities.

At the moment, however, our environmental protection regime is far superior to China’s, which gives us a competitive edge. Our children are growing up healthier and arguably smarter (since lead and mercury poisoning impairs brain development), and we will probably live longer and face lower cancer risks. Our environmental regulations give U.S. businesses more incentives to innovate and develop cleaner, more efficient production processes that will be fueling our economy long after China’s current high-polluting factories close their doors. We fought hard to build up the system that is now bringing these benefits, and it is not something we want to give up.

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by Celine Ramstein

There was more huffing and puffing on Capitol Hill this week over the Environmental Protection Agency’s new mercury standards.

Once again, lawmakers are attacking the EPA’s plan to regulate mercury from power plants, creating a false dichotomy between the economy and public health.

Railing against the standard during a Senate subcommittee hearing on the health benefits of the standard, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) called it “the most costly rule in the history of the EPA; one that typifies President Obama’s war on affordable energy.”

As one of the fiercest opponents of environmental regulations, it’s not a surprise that Inhofe counts oil, gas and electric utilities among his top five political donors — receiving over $600,000 in campaign contributions from those sectors since 2007.

Perhaps that’s why, despite analysis from the Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, Congressional Research Service, and the North American Reliability Corporation showing that the EPA rule will not threaten the electricity system, opponents like Inhofe continue to make grossly inaccurate claims.

So what are the facts? We’ve detailed them numerous times before. But the attacks on smart, effective environmental and public health standards are only picking up. It’s important to be armed with good information in order to combat the attacks:

• A CAP Analysis found that 22 members of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a coal industry coalition which is leading the charge against the rule, has nearly $18 billion in cash reserve which could go towards scrubbers and other equipment necessary to slash these pollutants.
• The Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, Congressional Research Service, and the North American Reliability Corporation have all done analysis showing that the rule will not threaten Americans’ access to reliable electricity.
• Studies by the Center for American Progress and Ceres found that many of the plants already have the capability to meet the air toxics rule.
• The EPA concluded that increase in electricity price increase would be relatively small and would actually  account for the harmful costs of pollution on the public.
• The Economic Policy Institute determined that the rules would yield a net increase of  84,500 direct jobs by 2015.
• The rules go into effect in 2015 and the utility Exelon has testified that three years is enough time to implement pollution control technology.
• EPA also makes a fourth year option widely available.
• Opponents’ predictions of high costs are likely overblown.  History shows that estimates of reductions costs under earlier pollution laws  are always higher than the actual costs.  For instance, In 1989, the EPA calculated that complying with the acid rain program would cost $2.7 billion to $4.0 billion but a decade later, an EPA analysis found that the actual cost was substantially lower at $1 to $2 billion per year.

History has proven that it is possible to maintain a strong economy and strong environmental standards at the same time. The political arguments we hear today simply don’t reflect reality.

Celine Ramstein is an intern on the energy team at the Center for American Progress. Arpita Bhattacharyya and Stephen Lacey contributed to this report.

The Environment Protection Agency is a favorite punching bag for Republican lawmakers, including freshman Tea Party Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-TN). In the fall, Fincher co-sponsored the House GOP’s Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act, a bill that uselessly “fought” a mythical attempt by the EPA to regulate farm dust.

At an April 5th roundtable in Dyersburg, TN, Fincher said the agency’s efforts to clean up the air and water warrant the political equivalent of a violent physical attack:

We must, we must cut the EPA’s legs off. I hate to say that because it sounds rotten but they are choking this country to death with legislating through the bureaucracy in Washington. I mean we have fought dust legislation we have fought water. You name it it is something every day from the Environmental Protection Agency and every group I talk to is the same message, ‘please stop them, please stop.”

Watch it:

This adds to the long list of extreme rhetoric from Republicans about the nation’s environmental agency.

House Republicans have attempted to strip both funding and regulatory power from the EPA, including trying to block overdue mercury pollution limits, and even nonexistent regulations, like the made-up farm dust rule.

Recent EPA measures will save tens-of-thousands of lives while the economic benefit of the regulations outweigh their costs by $10 billion to $95 billion a year.