WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.), Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, today released the following statement on the proposed rule by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to strengthen the Mercury and Air Toxic Standards (MATS) for power plants. The rule would cut emissions of mercury, nickel, arsenic and other dangerous heavy metals by requiring all covered power plants to use available, cost-effective control technology that most have already installed.
“The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards continue to be a remarkable, cost-effective success in reducing mercury and other toxic air pollution. Thanks to MATS, children and families are breathing cleaner air and there is less pollution in our nation’s waters,” said Senator Carper. “EPA’s proposed rule would build on the progress made to better protect communities. This science-based rule will ensure that power plants use modern pollution control technology, which will help save lives and support a healthy economy.”
CARPER’S LONG FIGHT TO CURB MERCURY:
From 1983 to 1993, Senator Carper served as Delaware’s only Member of Congress in the U.S. House of Representatives. There, he worked alongside the late John Dingell, then-chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, to pass the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. The 1990 law was a bipartisan piece of legislation that garnered support from 400 House Members and 89 Senators.
After the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 became law, Senator Carper partnered with then-Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) to develop legislation in 2010 that would have required utilities to eventually reduce mercury emissions by 90 percent. When the Obama administration finalized the MATS rule in 2012, the rule required utilities to meet a 90 percent reduction in mercury emissions. MATS also required a 50 percent reduction in other air toxics emissions.
During the Trump administration, as the senior-most Democrat on the EPW Committee, Carper fought tirelessly to defend the MATS rule:
- May 20, 2020 – Carper released A Pandemic of Pollution staff report summarizing EPA’s actions to roll back clean air protections during the COVID-19 pandemic and highlighted the MATS rollback during an oversight hearing with then-EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler.
- April 16, 2020 – Carper slammed the administration’s final rule undermining MATS as the deadly COVID-19 pandemic was sweeping across the country.
- November 12, 2019 – Carper and Alexander penned an op-ed in USA Today defending the MATS rule as a success, and urging EPA to not go forward with its rollback of the rule’s legal foundation.
- March 18, 2019 – Carper testified at an EPA hearing to defend the MATS rule.
- February 22, 2019 – Carper elevated the MATS issue as a priority in the nomination process of then-Acting Administrator Wheeler.
- December 28, 2018 – Carper slammed the proposal after it was announced during a government shutdown, saying “EPA has decided to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and all Americans will suffer as a result.”
- December 13, 2018 – Carper sent a letter to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) expressing grave concerns that in making this decision, EPA is ignoring or dismissing many of the MATS rule’s public health benefits and actual costs.
- August 24, 2018 – Carper sent a letter with Alexander to EPA requesting that EPA keep the MATS rule in place.
More recently, Chairman Carper has worked with the Biden administration to bolster MATS:
- January 31, 2022 – Carper praised EPA’s proposed rule to reinstate the 2012 MATS rule.
- February 17, 2023 – Carper cheered EPA’s final determination that it’s “appropriate and necessary” to regulate mercury and toxic air pollution from power plants.
Carper is also the long-time author of bipartisan legislation with Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), the Comprehensive National Mercury Monitoring Act, to establish a national mercury monitoring network.
