The U.S. Environmental Protection on April 16 released a revised final rule on mercury pollutants and air toxics control for coal-fired and oil-fired power plants that now excludes the broader value of health and environmental improvements not expressly derived from those pollutants—a move agency chief Andrew Wheeler says “foreshadows” its changed approach in assessing benefits and costs to industry of future mandates.

EPA is not scrapping the Obama Administration's 2012 limits on those emissions, said Wheeler, who added they will remain in place for current and future power-plant compliance. "We believe it is appropriate to keep the [existing mercury] regulation in place," he said.

但是，新规则取代了规则的成本效益分析中减少整体颗粒物的好处的规定，这两种类别的估计为90亿美元。

他说，该机构将使用新的缩放后卫方法来确定所有清洁空气法案“有针对性污染物”的成本和收益。18luck.cub预计将在几周内进行概述的法规。

The change could create cost-recovery problems for utilities, most of which have already made changes to meet previous requirements.

It had been opposed in 2019 by 21 state attorneys general, who claimed it "paves the way for repeal of emissions limits on mercury and other harmful air pollutants from power plants."

马萨诸塞州总检察长毛拉·希利（Maura Healey）去年在EPA听证会上作证说，当前的水星和空气毒物规则“对纳税人或电力系统的可靠性没有不利影响。”

环境groups say they will sue over the change, claiming EPA's cost figures dating back to 2011 don't reflect savings from new technology and that the revised legal-basis for the mercury standard and others could enable a court to eliminate those rules altogether.

New Justification

现在，新规则评估的收益每年仅为600万美元，而每年的行业成本为96亿美元。前煤炭行业游说者EPA管理员说，奥巴马的统治过于依赖其共同利益。他说：“可以实现共同利益，但不能作为主要理由。”

Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, said the revised mercury rule points to “vastly misplaced” priorities, especially with added respiratory risk from the current COVID-19 pandemic, noting also the huge industry compliance investments already made.

惠勒辩称，使用共同利益来证明对单一污染物（例如汞）的调节是合理的：“不仅是不诚实的，而且与《清洁空气法》背道而驰。”

Meanwhile, utilities had been concerned that EPA would rescind the mercury rule, or still may do on in the future despite Wheeler's stated intention to keep it, with impact on huge investments made to meet it as well as other clean-air emissions mandates.

田纳西河谷管理局发言人斯科特·布鲁克斯（Scott Brooks）说：“ TVA已实质上满足了规则的要求。”“对规则的修订不会改变我们的课程。”

Melissa McHenry, external relations manager for utility giant AEP, which has power operations in five states, says such a move also "will create new issues," contending that state utility commissions may not allow utilities to recover investments and ongoing operational expenses for them.

While "we disagreed with provisions of the rule when it was being promulgated, our controls are in place and compliance is being achieved," she says. "We can’t isolate the ... rule costs completely from other compliance activities."

自2000年以来,美国电力公司投资近88亿美元n environmental equipment retrofits at its coal-fired plants, says McHenry, with "much of this" related to mercury-rule compliance. It also permanently retired nearly 7,300 MW of coal-fueled generation in 2015 and 2016. She says plant mercury emissions have dropped 97% since 2001.

新的不确定性？

代表投资者拥有的公用事业的爱迪生电气研究所的发言人说：“废除[规则]的基本法律依据是对仍在收回安装这些控制技术成本的公司的新不确定性和风险。”18luck.cub

Former EPA Administrator Carol Browner called the policy a “sinister trojan horse that will undermine how EPA considers science and evaluates economic benefits of regulations in the future."

总部位于科罗拉多州的律师事务所Dorsey＆Whitney合伙人Megan Houdeshel说，新的EPA规则“在限制实施和合规成本方面，可能是限制健康福利成本计算的最远的”。18luck.cub“根据《清洁空气法》，在选举前的未来几个月中观看这项成本效益分析是否适用于其他监管行动。”