In bid to cut mercury, US lets other toxins through

At the heart of the debate over the new mercury rule is the rule's reversal of a 2000 EPA decision. Under the Clinton administration, the agency added electric utilities to a critical list of industries considered to be major sources of hazardous air pollutants such as lead and arsenic. The new mercury rule "de-lists" utilities. But in the eyes of many, that original listing still constitutes a legal requirement for power plants to eventually control these toxic emissions.
Not so, says the EPA. "What we concluded in the final mercury rule is that for the utility industry ... it was mercury that was the hazardous air pollutant with the greatest concern for public health," says spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman. In the preamble to the new mercury-rule proposal, the EPA concluded that nonmercury toxic emissions "posed no hazards to public health."