Bush's “Trade Pollution for Lives” Act Stalls in the Senate, But Administration Cuts Protection from Mercury Anyway

A Senate committee last month handed President Bush a setback by failing to pass his key environmental initiative, designed to allow pollution trading instead of protecting public health.  In an effort to obfuscate the intent of the act, the administration has misleadingly titled the act the “Clear Skies Act.”

The administration seeks to rewrite the Clean Air Act to give companies greater leeway to avoid installing new emissions controls when rebuilding power plants.  Bush has stated publicly that he essentially plans to issue EPA regulations anyway to accomplish the same task.  A key provision in the Clear Skies measure would establish what is known as the “cap-and-trade” system. Under it, a ceiling on polluting emissions is established.  Companies that reduce more than their share of the cap receive emissions credits, which they can sell to companies that exceed their limits.  Environmental, health and labor groups maintain that if the administration would simply issue tighter regulations, emissions could be reduced by as much as 90% by 2008 under existing law. 

The Bush administration also this month chose to rescind a Clinton-era directive that would have labeled mercury a toxic pollutant under the Clean Air Act.  Instead of regulating mercury under that law (signed by Bush's father) the administration has proposed the same "cap-and-trade" program.  However, a Harvard University study, suppressed by the administration, actually concluded that health benefits could be 100 times higher than the costs of what the EPA proposed if the administration put into place pollution cuts cross the board.  Mercury is known to harm the brain and nervous system, especially in infants.  The primary means of exposure is through consumption of certain species of deep ocean fish, such as tuna and pollock.