Northeastern States Seek Tightening of Federal Standards for Mercury

[DeepModem Mom]

Source: New York Times

States Seek Tightening of Standards for Mercury
By ANTHONY DePALMA
Published: April 12, 2007

New York and six other Northeastern states announced yesterday that they have joined in a regional pact to try to force the federal government to enact tougher standards on mercury emissions.

Claiming that they have done about as much as they can to reduce mercury pollution within their own borders, the states plan to focus on airborne mercury that drifts into the region from the Midwest, particularly from those states where coal-fired power plants are the prime source of electricity.

The Northeastern states acknowledge that they have little power to force other states to reduce smokestack emissions. But by banding together, they hope to pressure the federal government to enact national standards.

“The states can do a great deal on their own, but they cannot solve the problem,” said Pete Grannis, the new commissioner of the New York Department of Environmental Conservation. “But New York and its sister states can gang up on Washington to force the administration’s hand to move ahead on this.”

Northeastern states have already tried a similar approach to compel Washington to act on environmental issues. In December 2005, New York and six other states formed a Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to curtail smokestack emissions that contribute to global climate change....

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/nyregion/12mercury.html

[Robbien]

1. But Susan Dudley has just been recessed appointed to regs at the OMB

and she is adamant that government should not be regulating mercury or greenhouse gases. She wants government regs gone and allow corporations to regulate themselves.

This Dudley recess appointment is Bush's way of saying kiss my *ss to the treehuggers of the world.