Press Releases
06/28/2023
Attorney General Tong Joins Coalition Urging Stronger Standards for Dangerous Mercury Emissions from Power Plants
(Hartford, CT) – Attorney General William Tong has joined a coalition of 19 attorneys general and cities to file comments in support of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposal to update and strengthen the 2012 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS).The MATS are nationwide standards that limit coal and oil-fired power plant emissions of toxic air pollutants, such as mercury and other toxic metals.
“Power plant emissions of mercury are a hazardous threat to public health that must be carefully controlled. Federal MATS regulations have successfully reduced these dangerous emissions. With significant developments in the capability and affordability of new technologies to control air pollution, we have an opportunity and an obligation to do better. I applaud the Biden administration for taking this action to protect public health,” said Attorney General Tong.
Power plant emissions of mercury and particulate matter—which contains toxic metals like arsenic and lead—disproportionately harm certain vulnerable populations, including children, and highly exposed populations such as subsistence fishers and individuals living near power plants. These communities include communities of color or communities experiencing poverty that are often already disproportionately impacted by environmental injustices, including cumulative exposure to the same toxic pollutants from other sources.
Mercury in particular poses serious dangers to public health, with especially harmful effects on pregnant women, children, and wildlife. Airborne mercury from power plants falls back to the ground, where it is converted into methylmercury, a highly toxic form of mercury that accumulates in the food chain and particularly in fish. A pregnant person’s consumption of methylmercury exposes their child to mercury and can cause lifelong adverse developmental effects such as impaired attention, fine motor function, visual-spatial abilities, and verbal memory. Exposure to methylmercury also increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, infertility, diabetes, and autoimmune dysfunction in adults.
Mercury emissions from power plants also are a major contributor to mercury contamination of U.S. waterways, necessitating fish consumption advisories in all 50 states. Mercury pollution in lakes and rivers impacts the local commercial and recreation fishing economies as well as vulnerable and marginalized communities that rely on fishing for subsistence and tribal communities for whom fishing is culturally significant.
Given significant developments in the technologies used to control pollution, the EPA is proposing stricter standards for emissions of mercury and other toxic metals from coal-fired power plants. The coalition’s comments strongly support the EPA’s proposal but push the EPA to go further and strengthen the mercury limits on most plants to be consistent with those states that have more stringent power plant mercury standards. The coalition also urges the EPA to impose more stringent emission limits on power plant particulate matter emissions, which contain other toxic metals such as arsenic, lead, and nickel, and to impose the shortest feasible compliance deadlines.
Today’s comments were co-led by Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and joined by the attorneys general of Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and the City Solicitor of Baltimore; the Corporation Counsels of Chicago and New York City.
Assistant Attorney General Scott Koschwitz and Deputy Associate Attorney General Matthew Levine, Chief of the Environment Section, assisted the Attorney General in this matter.
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