D.C. Circuit Court Leaves Life-Saving Mercury Standards in Place

(Washington, D.C. – December 15, 2015) The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will leave the life-saving Mercury and Air Toxics Standards in place to continue protecting the health of millions of Americans.

The court issued an unanimous order today saying that the vital clean air measure will remain in effect while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) responds to a recent Supreme Court decision. 

“Today’s court decision is a holiday gift to all Americans who are afflicted by the toxic pollution from fossil fuel power plants,” said Fred Krupp, president of EDF, which was a party to the case. “The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards are protecting our families from serious, and sometimes deadly, health problems. Vacating the standards would have jeopardized those protections, and needlessly put people at risk.”

The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards set the first-ever national limits on hazardous air pollutants from power plants, including mercury, arsenic, chromium, and hydrochloric acid gas. Power plants are our nation’s single largest source of those pollutants, which are dangerous to human health even in small doses – mercury causes brain damage in children, metal toxics like chromium and nickel cause cancer, and acid gases cause respiratory problems. 

In June, a sharply divided Supreme Court remanded the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards to the D.C. Circuit Court. The Supreme Court ruled that the EPA must consider the costs of regulation in making its threshold determination whether it is “appropriate and necessary” to regulate hazardous air pollution from power plants.

Certain opponents asked the court to vacate the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards while EPA fulfilled that Supreme Court directive. EDF and a broad coalition of 15 states, several cities, the American Academy  of  Pediatrics and other major public health and medical professionals’ associations, the NAACP, environmental groups and power companies argued that blocking the standards while EPA responds to the Supreme Court’s decision would be unnecessary and dangerous. 

Today, the court decided to leave the standards in place.

EPA has already issued a supplemental finding reaffirming the enormous health benefits of reducing mercury and other toxic air pollution. (The agency had already found that the public health benefits of the standards were valued at up to $90 billion annually, but that finding was made later in the process of creating the standards.) 

EPA had also found that the value of the benefits far exceeded the compliance costs – and since then, power companies have been able to comply with the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards at less than one-quarter of  EPA’s original cost estimates, further weakening arguments that it’s now necessary to vacate the standards.

EPA has said it will finish the process of responding to the Supreme Court by April of 2016.   

You can find more about the history of the case and all the legal briefs on EDF’s website.