Legislature debates mercury emissions
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Four out of five Pennsylvanians want to see unhealthy mercury pollution from coal-burning power plants drastically reduced, even if it means they have to pay slightly higher electric bills, according to a new poll by a statewide environmental organization.
The poll, which will be released tomorrow by Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future, found that 80 percent of those surveyed wanted tougher limits on mercury emissions and would willingly pay the estimated $1.08 more a month such controls would cost the average household.
The poll comes as the Republican-led General Assembly is set to consider legislation that would stop the state Department of Environmental Protection from adopting regulations that would require coal-fired power plants to reduce their mercury emissions by 90 percent by 2015.
The legislation, which will be the subject of a state Senate hearing Tuesday in Harrisburg, would require the state instead to follow the federal mercury rules, which would allow lesser and slower mercury reductions by Pennsylvania's 36 coal-fired power plants, and could allow some older plants that are among the biggest polluters in the nation to avoid making any emissions reductions.
Pennsylvania is second to Texas in total emissions of mercury, a neurotoxin that moves from the air to waterways and accumulates in fish flesh. When ingested, it is especially harmful to babies, children and pregnant women. High mercury exposure can cause attention and language deficits, memory loss and impaired visual and motor functions.
"Four out of five Pennsylvanians want real power plant mercury cleanup and they want it soon," said Jan Jarrett, PennFuture vice president. "They get it that mercury is dangerous, especially to babies. They do not want power plants in this state to simply buy mercury allowances to comply with the weak federal rule, but continue to dump on their communities and waterways."
Almost two out of three voters, 63 percent, told pollsters they would be less likely to vote for a legislator who votes against the proposed tougher state mercury emission standards.
Patrick Henderson, a spokesman for Sen. Mary Jo White, R-Venango, a co-sponsor of the legislation that would bar the state from enforcing its own, tougher-than-federal rules, dismissed the PennFuture poll, disputing how much the stricter emissions reductions would cost consumers and questioning the need for power plant controls.
"If we were just talking about a $1.08-a-month utility bill increase, I don't think we'd be having the heated discussions we have been having about this over the last month," Mr. Henderson said. "But we think the DEP plan would cost billions and billions of dollars -- I don't have any actual numbers -- and would eliminate the advantages of the federal rule."
He said the federal rule permitted "emissions trading," which allows utilities to reduce mercury emissions more than required at one plant and trade those extra reductions to another plant which would not have to make as many reductions. That would be preferable to the state plan, which doesn't permit trading because it would allow reductions to be made in the most cost-efficient way.
Mr. Henderson said that, because power plant emissions make up only 1 percent of all mercury emissions worldwide, it was fair to ask if requiring utilities to install expensive controls to reduce their emissions was in the public interest.
"If we have to reduce emissions, we need to do it in the most cost-effective and efficient manner," he said, "without driving up costs or harming the power-generating capacity of the state."
The federal government adopted new, weaker mercury emissions rules in July, and states have until Nov. 17 to adopt stricter standards if they want to. The federal standards require mercury reductions of 70 percent from power plants by 2018.
Speaking at Sen. White's committee hearing Tuesday, the third and final hearing on the legislation, are DEP Secretary Kathleen McGinty and several public health experts. Representatives of the electric companies spoke at the previous hearings.
The random poll of 506 state residents, done for PennFuture during a two-week period in late April and early May by Terry Madonna Opinion Research, of Lancaster, has margin of error of 4.4 percent.
First Published June 4, 2006 12:00 am
