News Archive
Professor McCabe Says EPA Changes Could Set Precedent
04/29/2020
In an April 28 Indianapolis Star story, IU McKinney Professor of Practice and Director of the IU Environmental Resilience Institute Janet McCabe explains how recently announced changes that remove the legal foundation for regulations on mercury and other toxins emitted from coal- and oil-fired power plants might set a precedent for rolling back pollution standards that have improved air quality in the Great Lakes area.
On April 16, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a change that recalculates the cost-benefit analysis for the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, a rule finalized under the Obama administration in 2012. Under the new analysis, the EPA says the standards — which have reduced mercury emissions by 8 percent nationwide since 2011 — are no longer "appropriate or necessary."
The change doesn’t revoke the mercury regulation but undermines the legal foundation for it.
"You're not touching the standard itself," said Janet McCabe, a former official focusing on air quality at the EPA and IDEM, "but if you rescind the 'appropriate and necessary' finding, you're essentially undermining the legal underpinning of the rule itself."
