Short-term mercury exposure can cause anything from itching to irritation and long-term exposure can cause birth defects, asthma, lung poisoning and kidney poisoning, a March 24 article from the New Republic explained. The Environmental Protection Agency sanctioned mercury regulations, which were originally included in a bill drafted by President Barack Obama back in 2011, are currently jumping over their last hurdle before becoming law: the Supreme Court case EPA v. Michigan. Here are the basics.

The proposed action by the EPA is meant to regulate emissions of pollutants such as mercury, arsenic and nickel, among others, from coal and oil-fired power plants. There is no debate around whether or not these pollutants are harmful for both people and the environment. They are.

This is a matter of legal gray area. Because regulating mercury emissions falls under the Clean Air Act, Congress asked the EPA to determine if regulating power plant pollution was “appropriate and necessary.” What seems like a simple phrase is at the crux of this case. Michigan and 20 other states are suing the EPA because the cost of these regulations is $9.6 billion dollars and would be paid for by the individual states, a figure that the states feel is a result of the EPA not considering the costs of the regulations initially. This is the gray area. The EPA has since looked at the costs and considered that they are far outweighed by the benefits, but this technicality has the court hung up on whether to pass the bill.

Regulating the proposed pollutants is both appropriate and necessary. For the Supreme Court to side against the EPA over vague language rather than known environmental and health concerns would be a monumental disappointment, one that would continue to harm human life for the foreseeable future.

There is a startling difference in the estimations made by the EPA versus the states and industries regarding the monetary benefits of the proposed regulations. From a March 25 Washington Post article, “The states and industries opposing the regulations say that the annual costs of compliance under the rule would be $9.6 billion but that the benefits of reduced emissions of hazardous air pollutants are only $4 million to $6 million.” In comparison, the EPA estimates the benefits from the regulations of these dangerous emmittents to be anywhere from $30–90 billion.

Basically, states with a vested interest in deregulation of coal and oil-powered plants, are arguing that the costs of the regulations far outweighs the expected benefits. These states are concerned with short-term fiscal strain and are not seeing the bigger picture, one that the EPA is working to explain. This short-sightedness has the potential to protect destructive chemical emissions, which are proven to harm the public. This is an unprecedented case, centered on the EPA’s authority to take into account quantifiable social costs when estimating the benefits of proposed regulations.

The EPA specifically cites that, “Mercury can be especially dangerous to pregnant or breast-feeding mothers and young children, and some of the savings are calculated as coming from preventing as many as 11,000 deaths and more than a half-million lost days of work.” A March 25 article from Thinkprogress.org explained that, “Coal plants, for example, are responsible for 50 percent of all U.S. emissions of mercury.”
Whether or not the Supreme Court will rule in favor of the EPA later this month is hard to tell. What is clear, however, is that the public stands to benefit most from the proposed regulations, and to side against them is to be grounded in legal ambiguity while simultaneously endangering human life and the environmental well being of the planet.

Azor Cole is a junior public relations major and geography minor. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at azcole@syr.edu and followed on Twitter at @azor_cole.

Published on April 9, 2015 at 12:37 am