Source:  SPPI

Proposed rules would raise electricity costs, bring no environmental benefit, harm human health.
by Willie Soon 
Regulatory actions being debated in Florida should raise bright red flags for Sunshine State residents, other U.S. states, and even other countries.

Read full paper here: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/faulty_fdep.html

Other detailed papers on the real science of Mercury can be found here:

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/mercury/

Source:  Hacer

by Willie Soon and Paul Driessen

New rules use doctored evidence to cause economic pain and impair human health.

The Environmental Protection Agency recently issued 946 pages of new rules, requiring that U.S. power plants sharply reduce (already low) emissions of mercury and 83 other air pollutants. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson claims that, while the regulations will cost electricity producers $10.9 billion annually, they will save 17,000 lives and generate up to $140 billion in health benefits.

There is no factual basis for these assertions. To build its case, EPA systematically cherry-picked supportive studies (many of them dated) and ignored extensive evidence and clinical studies that contradict its regulatory agenda, which is to punish hydrocarbon use and close down coal-fired power plants. (more…)

Source:  Power America

by Don Dears

The threat from mercury is being overly hyped by the EPA in its efforts to demonize and close coal-fired power plants. There are two reasons why the threat is far less than the EPA claims.

First, does mercury cause harm?

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, “The gold standard in mercury research is a University of Rochester study that tracked a group of Seychelles Island children from birth to nine years old. While their mothers ate fish similar to that consumed in the U.S., they ate 10 times as much and had an average of six times as much mercury in their bodies. Yet researchers found no negative effects in their children.”

The alarmists refer to a study of Faroe Island children that has been discredited for not having a statistical correlation of test results and because the mothers consumed other toxins such as DDT. The main cause for high mercury levels in Faroe Island women was whale meat – not a likely source of food in the U.S. (more…)

Source: WSJ

[SPPI Note:  Numerous SPPI papers expose the EPA's false mercury claims in considerable detail: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/mercury/

A concise Mercury Fact Sheet can be downloaded here: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/mercury_fact_sheet.pdf ]

By WILLIE SOON AND PAUL DRIESSEN

OPINION

Panicking people about fish is no way to protect public health.

The Environmental Protection Agency recently issued 946 pages of new rules requiring that U.S. power plants sharply reduce their (already low) emissions of mercury and other air pollutants. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson claims that while the regulations will cost electricity producers $10.9 billion annually, they will save 17,000 lives and generate up to $140 billion in health benefits.

There is no factual basis for these assertions. To build its case against mercury, the EPA systematically ignored evidence and clinical studies that contradict its regulatory agenda, which is to punish hydrocarbon use. (more…)