Washington -- Confronted with a flood of public responses to proposed new regulations to limit the amount of toxic mercury emitted by power plants, the Environmental Protection Agency extended the comment period by two months on Thursday and said it would push back final action on the rule to March 2005.
~snip~
"Despite the Bush administration's best efforts to use every tactic in its public relations arsenal to convince Americans that more mercury in their water, their food and their bodies over a longer period of time is the best we can do, it is not working," Leahy said.
Leahy and Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, sent a lengthy letter Thursday to Leavitt, pushing for greater reductions in mercury emissions.
"Leavitt is basically admitting this proposed rule is a disaster," said Frank O'Donnell, executive director of the Clean Air Trust, an environmental advocacy group. "The question now is, is he really going to fix it or is it a PR move."
~snip~
more:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/04/30/MNG0I6DB6T1.DTL~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
another another snippet:
Mercury emissions from coal fired power plants are currently unregulated - these facilities emit some 48 tons of mercury each year, accounting for about 40 percent of the nation's mercury pollution.
The Bush administration has offered two proposals, but clearly favors one that would set a cap in 2010 on mercury emissions and employ a trading plan to bring emissions down to 15 tons by 2018 - a 70 percent reduction.
Critics note that the EPA's mercury contained 12 paragraphs almost verbatim from an industry proposal and contend a cap and trade system is an inappropriate form of regulation for mercury.
~snip~
more:
http://www.oneworld.net/article/view/85010/1/ 
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