CONTACT:

BILL HOLBROOK 202-224-5762 bill_holbrook@epw.senate.gov

MATT DEMPSEY 202-224-9797 matthew_dempsey@epw.senate.gov

WASHINGTON, DC – Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Chairman of the Environment & Public Works Committee said today that the Mercury Rule issued this afternoon by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will not provide the level of mercury reductions prescribed by the Clear Skies Act and will inevitably face litigation. The rule is the first regulation to reduce mercury from power plants in the United States. 

“The mercury ruled being issued today by the Bush administration is a historic first step – the first ever regulation of mercury from power plants – but does not provide the aggressive reductions or certainty that the Clear Skies bill would have provided,” Senator Inhofe said. “The Clear Skies bill achieves steeper mercury cuts in the first phase of reductions, imposes 70 percent cuts in the second phase a full two years earlier, and mandates the creation of an EPA regulatory program to address the fear of mercury ‘hot spots’. This rule is sure to face litigation by the same environmental extremists to who lobbied against passage of the Clear Skies bill. It is obvious to me that green advocacy groups would rather litigate clean air rules in court than make clean air progress in Congress. I still await the opponents of Clear Skies to come to the table with a legislative counter offer to the multiple proposals Senator Voinovich and I have offered the Committee.”