
EPA prepares weakening of mercury regulations - bigmit37
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/30/climate/epa-trump-mercury-rule.html
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jeremyt
Typical NYT article.

Vague and handwringing up front.

Then the truth is buried at the bottom where nobody is going to find it.

Turns out, the rule was passed in 2011. It was challenged in court, and the
Supreme Court upheld the challenge. It appears the Obama administration was
using dubious logic to calculate the "co-benefits"... which is what everybody
knows is going on anyway.

This is just a fancy justification to let the Obama administration kill coal
power plants. I'm not for or against it, but it seems obvious.

If a previous administration passed a rule, I don't know what argument we can
use to say that a future administration can't change that rule.

And anyone knows that it's pretty easy to lie with statistics and estimates,
so the Obama administration _surprisingly_ decided that the rule brought more
benefits than costs, and the industry _surprisingly_ says that the rule costs
$1500 for every $1 in benefits. The truth is somewhere in between. I don't
know what the truth is.

The only thing I know is that the NYT isn't helping us get there and appears
to think the truth is irrelevant.

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Latteland
Economics killed coal, because of natural gas being so cheap, but now solar
power and wind power and competitive. We shouldn't forget what the acid rain
was doing before we started reducing sulfur emissions. Mercury is another
thing we don't necessarily want more of. in you opinion, how should we
approach controlling emissions of things like mercury that are known to be
unhealthy in certain amounts. It's not like the obama admin invented this
idea.

~~~
njarboe
The sad thing is that the only thing that might save the higher tropic fish
like tuna from extinction is increasing the mercury levels to make eating them
so bad for human health that we quit eating them. Unfortunately, the the
mercury level needed to keep the Japanese from having a nice sushi dinner may
be higher than the lethal mercury level for tuna. Only time will tell I guess.

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maxxxxx
The fact that this administration is trying to roll back a lot of
environmental policies is my number one concern. Environmental regulation has
been such a huge success story over the least decades. It's just insane to
roll this back.

~~~
godzillabrennus
Depends on how you measure success.

If you care about the environment it’s a success.

If you care about creating jobs for blue collar workers regardless of how it
impacts the environment then it was a relative failure.

~~~
Rizz
What would create more jobs, running the same old coal power plant a couple
more years or building a million new wind turbines? Or running the same old
coal power plant or inventing, building and installing new filters and
furnaces for existing plants? With the added benefit of having a great new
technology to export and sell overseas if you're the world's first to have it
(=require it)

~~~
maxxxxx
Exactly. Maybe some companies would have higher cost but that money would flow
to other companies making that equipment. In the end it may be a net positive.

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fzeroracer
None of this should be a surprise, considering this is the same admin that
also predicts that the planet will warm by about 4 degrees Celsius by 2100,
but argues that any sort of environmental regulation won't help therefore we
should just roll them back anyways [1].

Make no mistake, these rollbacks can and will hurt a lot of people. Not the
people advocating for them though since they'll likely be dead and buried by
the time we see the dire consequences for their actions.

[1]
[https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/documents/ld...](https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/documents/ld_cafe_my2021-26_deis_0.pdf)

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hn_throwaway_99
> Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist who is now the acting administrator
> of the Environmental Protection Agency

and

> The details of the rollback about to be proposed would also represent a
> victory for Mr. Wheeler’s former boss, Robert E. Murray, the chief executive
> of the Murray Energy Corporation, one of the nation’s largest coal
> companies. Mr. Murray, who was a major donor to President Trump’s
> inauguration fund, personally requested the rollback of the mercury rule
> soon after Mr. Trump took office, in a written “wish list” he handed to
> Energy Secretary Rick Perry.

It's difficult for me to imagine how this cartoon-level villainy could get any
worse, but I guess I'm numb at this point.

~~~
roryisok
> It's difficult for me to imagine how this cartoon-level villainy could get
> any worse, but I guess I'm numb at this point.

There are days when i feel like reality is trolling me

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Daishiman
They are literally taking away the very fabric of a civilized society.

~~~
FranzFerdiNaN
But think of all the shareholder value this creates! And since we live within
a capitalistic society, creating shareholder value is the only thing that
matters. So clearly Trump is the most greatest president to have ever lived.

