President Obama properly held firm this week on his administration's plan to enact the first national controls on mercury and other airborne toxics generated by electric utilities. That decision is good news for Ohio, and especially its children and young mothers.
Our state is the nation's second-largest producer of energy from coal-fired power plants. The new pollution controls are likely to encourage utilities to accelerate their reliance on alternative-energy markets, creating jobs in northwest Ohio.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the new regulations will provide $90 billion of public-health and economic benefits a year -- as much as $9 for every dollar spent to reduce pollution from power plants.
More important, EPA officials say the rules will prevent 11,000 premature deaths each year, along with 4,700 heart attacks, 130,000 cases of childhood asthma symptoms, and 6,300 cases of acute bronchitis in children.
Congress directed the EPA in 1990 to address mercury pollution through amendments to the federal Clean Air Act. Mercury is a potent toxin that attacks the brain and central nervous system, and is especially harmful to young mothers and children. As it falls from the sky and settles on large bodies of water, such as the Great Lakes, mercury converts to a new form that is much worse than what comes out of smokestacks.
The new rules have attracted predictable opposition from lobbies such as the Ohio Manufacturers Association and politicians such as Republican U.S. Senate candidate Josh Mandel. They say the rules could cost Ohio 53,500 jobs and a 13-percent increase in electric rates.
That analysis ignores several issues. DTE Energy has made more than $1 billion of improvements over the past decade to its coal-fired power plant in Monroe, Mich. That work did not devastate the local economy. Instead, it created hundreds of jobs and provided years of stability to one of Michigan's largest employers.
Anger from industry is not universal. A national coalition that claims to represent 125,000 business, some of them Fortune 500 companies, thanked the Obama Administration for providing clarity they need in the new rules to move forward. Businesses that fail to modernize do so at their own risk.
President Obama disappointed environmental activists earlier this year, when he postponed stronger regulations to control smog-forming ozone. Ohio and other Great Lakes states can be grateful that the administration has not wavered on mercury standards.
First Published December 23, 2011, 5:00 a.m.
