Toxic-fish rule could help Obama hit '20 climate goal

Senate Democrats crafting an energy bill have abandoned until September, and probably through the rest of the year, debate on climate measures like carbon caps on power plants and mandates for utilities to produce more power from renewable sources like wind and solar.

But while many people concerned about climate control have been focusing on the Senate, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under its Administrator Lisa Jackson, has been quietly preparing to crack down on coal, the most carbon-intensive fuel, like never before.

Under Jackson, a former chemical engineer for an oil company who says the idea that progress on environment has to hurt the economy is a “false choice,” the agency late last year declared that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare.

The EPA has begun to take steps on regulating greenhouse gases from autos, power plants and factories.

But it is the agency's looming rules on mainstream pollutants, those that can cause diseases, that may limit carbon dioxide emissions the most.

While the EPA is considering a raft of new rules surrounding coal, its upcoming rule on emissions of mercury, which go up smokestacks at coal-fired power plants and enter the ecosystem, could pack the biggest punch.

The rule, which the EPA was forced by court to issue by November 2011, will likely help escort many of the oldest and dirtiest emitters of carbon into early retirement.

Environmental groups and a nurses' group sued the EPA to issue the rules.

Mercury Accumulates in Fish

That is because scientists say mercury from coal accumulates in many fish. Children and babies exposed to the metal, through mother's milk or eating contaminated fish, are at risk of learning and developmental problems. Adults who eat too many of the fish also face risks.

The EPA would likely have to start enforcing the rules three years after issuing them.

When combined with the EPA's other current and coming rules on “criteria” pollutants, like ones that cause acid rain and smog, the mercury measure would force utilities to invest tens of millions of dollars on technologies to remove the substances.

Many of those plants are about 50 years old and are already inefficient.

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