Environmental groups were scandalized this week after the Environmental Protection Agency, acting under the orders of President Trump, invited coal power plants and other industrial polluters to seek to bypass the key arrangements of the Clean Act Act which limit dangerous emissions by sending an email.
“EPA has created an electronic mailbox to allow the regulated community to request a presidential exemption under (a provision) of the Clean Air Act,” the agency announced on Monday. The announcement also contained a model that candidates to use in their requests.
The provision in question, article 112 (i) (4) of the Clean Act Act, applies to the regulation of nearly 200 pollutants, in particular mercury, arsenic, benzene and formaldehyde – known carcinogens which have also been linked to reproductive and developmental problems, respiratory diseases and other adversation results for health.
In its announcement, the EPA noted that the Clean Air Act allows the president to exempt “stationary sources” at air pollution-that is to say sources that are not vehicles, essentially-compliance with the rules up to two years “if the technology to implement the standard is not available and it is in the national security interests of the United States to do so”.
The opponents said that the plan is equivalent to a card without frost for pollutors and added to the Trump administration against hard -won protections.
“This is Hell’s e-mail reception box, where the vital protections for the air we breathe will die,” said Jason Rylander, legal director of climate Law Institute of the non-profit center for biological diversity, in a press release. “It is really dystopian that the Trump administration allows polluters to release more damaging toxins on the brain on our children simply by sending an email.”
The EPA exemption model asks the candidates to explain why they cannot currently achieve the programs reduction objectives and why an extension is in the country’s national security interests.
An e-mail alone does not guarantee exemption, said EPA. Instead, the president “will make a decision on the merits”, according to the agency’s announcement this week.
“What they are doing is unprecedented,” said Adam Kron, a principal lawyer for the Earthjustice non -profit environmental law group. “There is a section in the Clean Air Act which offers the possibility of looking for this presidential exemption, but to our knowledge, it has never been used – and certainly not in a way they are largely put.”
According to its counting, the exemption could apply to at least 764 sources of pollution in nine industrial sectors such as the manufacture of chemicals, merger in copper, steel production and coal power plants – “just a whole multitude of very large and widespread and toxic installations across the country,” said Kron.
Interested companies have until March 31 to send their exemption requests. Exemptions can be granted up to two years and can be renewed, if necessary, said EPA.
Fossil fuel companies and other regulated groups have long been complaining that the Clean Act Act is unduly expensive and expensive. Earlier this month, many celebrated when Trump’s EPA administrator announced his intention to withdraw 31 rules and regulations that govern air and water standards in order to reduce costs.
“President Donald Trump and EPA administrator Lee Zeldin responded to manufacturers’ calls across the country to rebalance and reconsider federal land regulations that harm America’s ability to compete,” Jay Timmons, CEO of the National ASSN. Manufacturers said at the time.
Trump – who received record donations of fossil fuel companies during his presidential campaign – also promised to bring together coal production.
But environmental groups have said that the latest decision marks the new erosion of guarantees intended to protect the health and well-being of communities across the country.
“This gap, if it is held in place, will kill the Americans, simple and simple,” wrote Laurie Williams, director of the Beyond Coal campaign of the Sierra Club for non -profit, in a press release. “This is completely offline with the agency’s mission and what the Americans deserve from our government.”
Several environmental groups have already filed requests for freedom of information by looking for the list of candidates and their alleged justifications for presidential exemptions at the Clean Air Act.
If the exemptions come into force, they will probably be faced with legal opposition, said Kron, from Earthjusitice. “We are ready to take all measures to defend our customers and communities who really turn to these rules to protect their health and their livelihoods.”
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