High Costs Don’t Justify New Power Plant Mercury Cuts, EPA Says (2)

The cost of forcing power plants to further reduce mercury and other toxic air pollutants they emit would far outweigh any additional health benefits, the EPA said as part of a proposal released Dec. 28.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal would leave in place the mercury and air toxics standards, or MATS, set by the Obama administration in 2012. Along with the agency’s re-examined cost and benefit analysis, required by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016, the EPA also completed the periodic review of the toxic pollution standards.

Using that re-examined economic analysis—which slashes the health benefits of reducing ...