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The Trump administration EPA says regulations to reduce power plant emissions of mercury and other hazardous air pollutants are too costly and should no longer be considered legally "appropriate and necessary."
In another proposed reversal of an Obama-era standard, the Environmental Protection Agency Friday said limiting mercury and other toxic emissions from coal- and oil-fired power plants is not cost-effective and should not be considered "appropriate and necessary."
The EPA says it is keeping the 2012 restrictions in place for now, in large part because utilities have already spent billions to comply with them. But environmental groups worry the move is a step toward repealing the limits and could make it harder to impose other regulations in the future.
In a statement, the EPA said it is "providing regulatory certainty by transparently and accurately taking account of both costs and benefits."
The National Mining Association welcomed the move, calling the mercury limits "punitive" and "massively unbalanced."
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 30 2018, @01:48PM (5 children)
Natural gas from the fracking revolution in America is killing coal, and natural gas, unlike coal, is clean.
Cleaner, cheaper, more versatile. Most of this natural gas is produced in the same region as coal.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Sunday December 30 2018, @02:51PM (1 child)
Natural gas, especially from fracking, isn't clean: It does a ton of damage to water supplies and aquifers, can and does cause earthquakes, and the only thing that can be said in its favor is that coal is worse.
There's been fracking not too far from my place. It's not been good, at all, for the people who live there.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 30 2018, @08:44PM
This is true. Natural gas is cleaner than coal, but that doesn't mean that it's clean. And it certainly doesn't mean that it's something that should be subsidized or encouraged.
Natural gas will run out at some point, although efforts to collect it from landfills and the like are worth continuing indefinitely as it's cleaner to burn the gas than it is to allow it to escape directly into the atmosphere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 30 2018, @04:07PM
Natural gas, plus solar and wind and whatever else becomes cheap and efficient.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 30 2018, @06:16PM
WTF told you that there is anything good about fracking? I suppose if you enjoy seismic activity, it may look good to you. But, if that is the case, why not move to California? Or, move right on past California, and get a home on the Ring of Fire. I spent a year on Adak Island, in the Aleutians. Out of ~370 days on the island, there was seismic activity at least 250 of those days. The rest of those days the activity probably wasn't intense enough for me to feel it.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday December 30 2018, @09:39PM
It's cleaner than coal, but still dirty. We need to move to carbon-neutral energy; wind, solar, hydro, geothermal.
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