The Trump administration has finalized its rollback of groundbreaking controls on mercury and other air pollution from coal and oil-burning power plants — but not by actually rewriting or repealing any regulations. Instead, the EPA has changed how the costs and benefits of environmental rules are calculated, downplaying the savings from improved human health while elevating the costs to polluters to implement them. The move laid the groundwork for a regulatory upheaval. “The new method could be used to justify loosening restrictions on any pollutant that the fossil fuel industry has deemed too costly to control,” reported The New York Times. By EPA’s own estimates, the 2012 rule has saved as many as 17,000 lives a year, and prevented thousands of illnesses. Status: Effective April 15, 2020.
