Sen. Cramer, Rep. Armstrong Express Concern Over EPA's Proposed Mercury Air Toxics Standards Rule

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and Congressman Kelly Armstrong (R-ND), members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and House Energy and Commerce Committee with jurisdiction over the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), sent a letter to EPA Administrator Michael Regan requesting the withdrawal or significant revision of the proposed regulation rule known as the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS).

The letter follows the release of EPA’s new proposal which would increase the MATS. The North Dakota members expressed concern about the consequences of this regulation on the state’s lignite coal fleet.

“North Dakota's leadership outlined a number of failures in the proposed regulation. The EPA did not provide any scientific justification for the proposed regulation and even admits current exposure associated with mercury is well below levels of concern from a public health perspective. The operators of North Dakota's lignite power plants outlined substantial flaws in EPA's methodology and datasets while identifying a number of consequential technical errors, including no new technological developments and underestimating the cost of additional mercury removal by more than three times. These and other flaws within the proposal make for a regulation that is not technically or legally justified,” wrote the members.

“Our nation is undergoing a rapid transition in the power sector as dispatchable resources retire at an alarming rate without similarly capable resources to replace them. This has sparked reliability concerns among power providers, grid operators, and independent monitors alike. This regulation, along with the plethora of other EPA actions targeting coal-fired power plants, illustrates explicit bias in accelerating a preferred transition without health or economic justification. The American public is already paying more and more for less and less reliable electricity with no appreciable human or environmental health benefits to show for it,” added the members.

Click here to read the letter.