EPA ignores own research in creating mercury rule
The U.S. EPA may have grossly underestimated the health benefits of mercury-emission reductions, according to a study commissioned by, uh, the EPA. When the Bush administration’s new mercury rule was released last week, administration officials claimed that it would yield only $50 million a year in health benefits, while costing industry $750 million a year to implement. This poor cost-benefit ratio was used as justification for not requiring greater reductions. But an EPA staffer has recently revealed that a study conducted by EPA and Harvard scientists estimated the health benefits of the rule to be some 100 times greater — worth some $5 billion a year in health savings — because of mercury’s effects on cardiac health. Agency officials said the study was submitted too late, but interviews and documents reveal that to be, uh, not true. They also say the study had unspecified “flaws.” But they now acknowledge that no one can say “definitively” that the costs outweigh the benefits — just that they outweigh the “quantified benefits.” Perhaps if they’d quantified all the benefits …
