You can't trust the free market to regulate itself regarding environmental issues. There are too many dangers for the general public to be well educated about and codes are way to difficult for most people to be able to interpret. Most of the public either doesn't know or doesn't care about mercury. They sure as hell should.
I actually work in the Air Quality Permitting business. Our clients are industrial corporations and we prepare their permit application and deal with most regulatory affairs for them.
When I started at my current job, I deeply mistrusted the large corporations. I've come to realize that
most companies try to do their best to comply with regulations and I've never thought that a company was trying to get us to fudge things for them (and we
never would). This sounds good, but the only reason why they try so hard is because they know the agency that overlooks them has the authority to levy large fines and shut them down if needed.
However, they will only comply with exactly what is on the permit. They aren't going to spend a dime more than what is absolutely required of them and if they have the resources they
will fight a permit condition if they think they can have it taken off.
Quote:
Originally posted by Superbelt
Additionally Bush wants to free up the dirtiest powerplants in america, the infamous grandfathered** ones in the midwest which account for the MAJORITY of air pollution in the midatlantic and much of New England. He wants to gut the New Source Review law so that they can replace up to a third of their equipment ever year, and not have to improve their emission standards whatsoever.
It completely flies in the face of what NSR was meant to do. He is creating the most dangerous environmental loophole ever.
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I totally agree with you on that. I was disgusted to see the CAA raped like that. The worst thing is that these companies are so willing to spend millions on legal fees and get bad press if the net result is that they will save 10's of millions. As a power plant, the consumers are not in the position to say "I'll just get my power elsewhere" so the public has no way to stick it back to them.
These plants are over 50 years old and made back their capital investments decades ago. They have the money to purchase add-on control equpiments and if you look at the capital invested in the improvements they made the cost of pollution control devices aren't that crazy.
Right wingers like to paint the picture that compliance with environmental codes could destroy the economy. Similar to national security issues, those who don't agree are ridiculed by the republican machine. Intead of being called traitors, we are labled treehuggers. Nothing could be further from the truth for me.
Grandfathering clauses are fine with me. It is unfair to force a company to comply with a standard that was issued after their plant was up and running. However, if you are going to make changes, they need to incorporate new technologies. The power plant example is just one of many cases where the codes broke down.