Late last year the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) updated Clean Air Act safeguards to protect our children’s and families’ health from mercury and other dangerous air toxics from power plants.

The move wouldn’t have been possible without the full support from the White House. As Politico and ClimateWire (subscription required) note, NRDC is airing this television ad which recognizes the President’s commitment to stand up to polluters, and challenges Congress to do likewise.

NRDC is not alone in thanking the President and the EPA for decisions that will save tens of thousands of lives. While the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is taking some real shots with politicians in Congress and out on the campaign circuit, there is no sign that the EPA has lost any favor in the “real world.”  Consider these editorials that greeted the Agency’s urgently needed update of mercury pollution rules: 

Toward Healthier Air, New York Times, (editorial), 12/22/11.  This is a big victory for environmentalists and scientists who have worked for 20 years to regulate these pollutants — and an even bigger one for the public. When fully effective, the rule could save as many as 11,000 premature deaths a year and avoid countless unnecessary illnesses. 

Victory on mercury, Toledo Blade, (editorial), 12/23/11. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the new regulations will provide $90 billion of public-health and economic benefits a year -- as much as $9 for every dollar spent to reduce pollution from power plants. More important, EPA officials say the rules will prevent 11,000 premature deaths each year, along with 4,700 heart attacks, 130,000 cases of childhood asthma symptoms, and 6,300 cases of acute bronchitis in children.

Clearing the air on mercury, Los Angeles Times, (editorial), 12/23/11. Despite the cries of outrage from conservative Republicans, the regulations are neither job-killers nor the result of Democratic regulatory overreach. 

New pollution rules tardy and necessary, Charlotte Observer, (editorial), 12/23/11. Mercury is especially dangerous for pregnant women, because in high enough doses, it can cause mental retardation and cerebral palsy in newborns - and in low doses it might slow a child's brain development. These frightening dangers have been suspected for decades - and confirmed more than a dozen years ago. That's why we applaud the Environmental Protection Agency's new rules, announced Wednesday, to finally limit mercury and other toxic air pollutants produced by coal-fired power plants.

In fact, we have looked high and low  and we find very few editorial boards and op-ed pages that have rallied around the medically deleterious impact of mercury pollution:

New for 2012: Cleaner air, Baltimore Sun, (editorial), 01/03/12. Such fears over power shortages and job losses are greatly over-hyped by the industry and its supporters desperate to maintain the profitable status quo. 

When enacting stronger pollution rules, the sooner, the better for all, Austin American Statesman, (editorial), 01/03/12. The EPA says the mercury rule will prevent 11,000 premature deaths a year nationwide and 130,000 asthma attacks. It will save tens of billions more dollars in annual health care costs than it will cost to implement the rule — as much as $9 for every dollar spent on retrofitting a power plant. The health benefits are incalculable, and it's amazing it's taken so long for such standards to be issued, given the damaging health effects that mercury has on children and the environment.

Long-delayed cleanup will make U.S. healthier, Billings Gazette, (editorial), 01/08/12. Air pollution emitted by coal-fired power plants can cause cancer and cardiovascular disease; harm the kidneys, lungs and nervous system; and even kill. The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards will reduce these pollutants and prevent 130,000 childhood asthma attacks and 11,000 premature deaths each year, the American Lung Association says…Reducing toxic emissions is responsible public policy and good business. The success of these rules will demonstrate that coal-fired plants can provide reliable power — and cleaner air. America doesn’t need to shut down coal power; it needs to clean it up.

DN Editorial: Clear the air with new emissions regulations, Philadelphia Inquirer, (editorial), 12/29/11. The EPA says that the new standards will prevent 11,000 premature deaths and 130,000 cases of aggravated asthma among children per year. The new standards will cost $10 billion in cleanup costs, but will save over $90 billion in medical costs. Sounds like a pretty good deal, and there are other economic benefits: retrofitting facilities and installing and monitoring pollution control devices will result in 1.5 million new jobs over the next five years.

Long time coming for mercury rules, Denver Post, (editorial), 12/28/11. Contaminated fish is the main way that people ingest mercury. It's particularly dangerous for infants, children and developing fetuses, who would be exposed if their mothers ate contaminated fish. The primary effect is impaired neurological development. Such exposure can result in problems with cognitive thinking, attention span, memory and fine motor skills, according to studies cited by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Even a mother who shows no symptoms of nervous-system problems can give birth to a child with profound disabilities.

New EPA rules mean fresher air, fairer utility rates, Lewiston Sun Journal, (editorial), 12/27/11. The new rules won't come without a cost to ratepayers in the affected states, estimated at $9.6 billion annually. But those costs are far outweighed by the estimated health care savings, estimated between $37 and $90 billion annually by 2016 when the new law fully goes into effect. But there's more: The U.S. Lung Association estimates that the stricter standards will prevent 130,000 childhood asthma attacks each year and 11,000 premature deaths.

A win for air, for health, (Boulder, CO) Daily Camera, (editorial), 12/22/11. It is a very expensive rule. It also packs powerful, cost-saving and life-saving benefits. The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday announced sweeping, $9.6 billion regulations that will force the nation's oldest and most-polluting power plants to clean up or shut down. More than half of the nation's coal-fired power plants have already upgraded their facilities to scrub mercury out of their emissions. The rest of the country's existing plants will have about four years to comply.

I could go on, but I’d rather close with an editorial that makes the point:  If you can have new jobs created by cleaning up pollution that harms the health of Americans, versus no new jobs and ongoing health harms that would go unaddressed, why in the world would choose the latter option?

Where the Real Jobs Are, New York Times, (editorial), 01/02/12. The country obviously needs more jobs. Mr. Obama needs to lay out the case that industry, with government help, can create hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs without incurring environmental risks — by upgrading old power plants to comply with environmental laws, retrofitting commercial and residential buildings that soak up nearly 40 percent of the country’s energy (and produce nearly 40 percent of its carbon emissions) and promoting growth in new industries like wind and solar power and advanced vehicles.  By even the most conservative estimates, the power plant upgrades required by the new rule governing mercury emissions are expected to create about 45,000 temporary construction jobs over the next five years, and as many as 8,000 permanent jobs as utilities install pollution control equipment. 

Enough said!

It was bad enough that Pennsylvania congressmen Tim Holden (PA-17) and Lou Barletta (PA-11) voted for a bill that the American Lung Association called “The single greatest roll-back of Clean Air Act protections in history."

Now, they are misleading their constituents about those votes.

UPDATE: PA's Clean Air Council is rallying citizens outside of Rep Holden's Harrisburg office Thursday October 20th from noon - 1pm. Details here.

NRDC took out television ads criticizing both members’ support for supporting dirty air legislation. Now Holden and Barletta are insisting that that their votes have done nothing to repeal or remove existing environmental protection agency regulations.

For the record, PoliticsPA reported:

“Holden told PoliticsPA that he did not vote to repeal any existing anti-pollution regulations…”

and that a spokesman for Barletta said

““Every single vote cited keeps current EPA regulations in place and allows the EPA to continue to regulate pollutants.”

There are a few problems with these statements. First of all, NRDC’s ad says that the members

“voted to let polluters dump mercury, soot, smog and arsenic into the air. Toxic pollution that causes thousands of hospital visits, asthma-related illnesses and even deaths.”

Tellingly, neither member denied that assertion. 

Instead, they resorted to misdirection  - answering charges that no one has made. By framing their votes as doing nothing to “existing” or “in place” regulations, perhaps they think it will sound like they took nothing away from their constituents.

But the fact is they took away clean air safeguards already on the books, they took away clean air safeguards the EPA has spent years to update and was about to put into effect, and they took away the vital principle that standards should be set based on what is most protective of public health, not how inconvenient cleanup is for polluters.

The bills Holden and Barletta have supported this year amend and weaken the Clean Air Act in multiple ways, substituting the law’s strongest protections against mercury and toxic air pollution with far weaker measures (for example, section 5(b)(4)(B) of H.R. 2401) and substantially delaying compliance (section 5(b)(3)).

And that isn’t all. Both members go further to deny that their votes harm public health. Holden does so by saying it isn’t fair to say his votes put kids at risk. But, as I’ve pointed out, his votes do put kids at risk.

PolticsPA further reported that Representative Barletta's spokesperson claimed that “not one” of his votes “alters the Clean Air Act in any way.” This is so thoroughly wrong as to raise the question whether the congressman read the bill or understood what he was voting for.

For the details on how the members' votes do all these things and more, see here.

But let's get back to the members' attempted misdirection. Perhaps even more troubling than the votes themselves and all their consequences is that both member’s claims are flat-out untrue. Let’s look at the facts:

Both members voted for the “TRAIN” Act, H.R. 2401. That bill repeals an existing regulation – the Cross-State Air Pollution standard, which is designed to reduce the lives lost and other health impacts of coal power plant pollution that floats across state lines.

There are no ifs, ands or buts about this.

You don't have to take my word for it. Here’s what the text of the bill actually says:

H.R. 2401, Sec. 5(a)(1):

“(a) Cross – State Air Pollution Rules:

(1)   EARLIER RULES.—The rule entitled ‘‘Federal Implementation Plans: Interstate Transport of Fine Particulate Matter and Ozone and Correction of SIP Approvals’’, published at 76 Fed. Reg. 48208 14 (August 8, 2011), and any successor or substantially similar rule, shall be of no force or effect, and shall be treated as though such rule had never taken effect.” (italics added.)

It doesn’t take a legal scholar to figure out that voting for a bill that says an existing regulation “shall be of no force or effect, and shall be treated as though such rule had never taken effect” pretty much meets the common definition of repeal which is defined as “to rescind or annul by authoritative act; especially:  to revoke or abrogate by legislative enactment.”

And obviously that does not keep the regulation in place, as Barletta’s office claimed.

It’s time for Holden and Barletta to come clean – on both counts. Pennsylvanians have a right to know the truth about what their Representatives in Washington are up to.

Pennsylvania Congressman Tim Holden (PA-17) has voted against clean and safe air four times this year, each time increasing the health risks to kids, who are among the most vulnerable to the effects of dangerous air pollution. There are 260,000 kids in Pennsylvania who have asthma – a dangerous condition well-known to be worsened by air pollution.

That’s why NRDC has launched a two-week tv ad campaign to make sure Holden’s constituents know what he’s up to in DC.

But the Representative appears to be in a state of denial. PoliticsPA reports that:

Holden told PoliticsPA that he did not vote to repeal any existing anti-pollution regulations but rather to slow them down in an economy that’s recovering.  

It is worth noting that Pennsylvanians don’t buy the line that EPA safeguards are bad for jobs and the economy, according to a new poll by Public Policy Polling. After hearing arguments against the policies and the arguments of health experts in favor of them, 73% of Pennsylvanians asked say they oppose Congress’ efforts to overrule the strengthening of clean air safeguards.

But more important, it is worth noting that Holden’s claim is simply untrue. (For the record, so is his characterization of what our ad actually says. We say he voted to let polluters dump more dangerous pollution into the air, not that he voted to repeal anything.)

During 2011 alone, Representative Holden has supported four separate bills whose combined effects are to undo key clean air safeguards that could prevent tens of thousands of early deaths and asthma attacks due to air pollution, as well as to permanently weaken the Clean Air Act and the EPA’s ability to implement it.

In fact, he voted for the final form of one of these deadly bills yesterday – shortly after giving comment to PoliticsPA on our ad. Last night the US House passed a bill that repeals US Environmental Protection Agency standards against dangerous and toxic air pollution from industrial boilers – including mercury, a brain poison well-documented as posing the greatest danger to young and unborn children. So Representative Holden voted to repeal four existing anti-pollution regulations (all combined in one single bill) on the very same day that his spokesperson was denying publicly that he voted to repeal such safeguards.

But Holden’s record is longer than that one bill. Here’s his rap sheet for 2011, starting with  the bill I just described:

• October: Holden votes to prevent cleanup of toxic pollution from incinerators and industrial boilers. Holden voted for H.R. 2250, which repeals and weakens Clean Air Act safeguards slated to reduce mercury, toxic metals, acid gases and other hazardous air pollution from incinerators and other industrial polluters. The bill Holden supported also repeals Clean Air Act compliance deadlines for these life-saving standards, meaning companies’ compliance with any future toxic air pollution standards could be delayed indefinitely.. .See more details here.
  
  Health impact: Up to 22,750 deaths, during just the bill’s minimum period blocking safeguards. 
• October: Holden Voted for the TRAIN Act, Which Would Block Life- Saving Clean Air Act Standards For Power Plants. This bill would repeal or block two critical Clean Air Act standards (Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for power plants and the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule) that limit soot, smog, mercury and other toxic pollutants like arsenic, dioxin, and formaldehyde from power plants.  The bills eliminate any actual deadlines for EPA to re-issue health standards, allowing these life-saving standards to be blocked indefinitely– effectively repealing clean air safeguards that would prevent thousands of deaths and illnesses. Finally, the bills eviscerate the legal authority for EPA to re-issue protective standards.
  
  Health impact: 139,500 deaths, 66,000 hospital visits, and 1 million asthma attacks over the next seven years – and over 25,000 additional deaths every year after.
• February: Holden voted to block EPA from cleaning up cement plants. Holden voted for an amendment that would prevent EPA from using any funds to implement standards that are already on the books to control smog, soot, mercury and other toxic air pollution emitted by cement plants—some of the worst industrial polluters of any kind.
  
  These plants dump mercury pollution and other hazardous air pollutants into the air we breathe and the water we drink.   Cement plants are also a significant source of nitrogen oxide pollution, which are associated with a variety of health problems and adversely affect people with lung diseases such as asthma.
  
  Rep Holden claims he’s just trying to “slow-down” health protections, but its hard to see how he justifies this considering the amendment’s own sponsor, Texas Rep John Carter, described the measure this way: “Carter’s Amendment 165 blocking proposed new rules against the Portland cement industry.”
  
  Health impact: 2,500 lives per year.
• February: Holden voted to block the EPA from updating clean air standards and to protect public health from carbon pollution.  Holden voted for H.R. 910, which would gut the Clean Air Act and completely block work already underway by the EPA to set standards for carbon pollution that will clean up our air, make cars go further on a gallon of gas and protect public health. According to a letter from leading health groups including the American Lung Association and the American Public Health Association, “[t]his legislation would interfere with EPA’s ability to implement the Clean Air Act; a law that protects the public health and reduces health care costs for all by preventing thousands of adverse health outcomes, including: cancer, asthma attacks, heart attacks, strokes, emergency department visits, hospitalization and premature deaths. … H.R. 910 would strip away sensible Clean Air Act protections that safeguard Americans and their families from air pollution.” 
  
  Health impact: Incalculable.

This voting record makes abundantly clear how wrong Holden is to now claim that “he did not vote to repeal any existing anti-pollution regulations.” Which only makes it more shocking and reckless that he evidently did not understand what all of these destructive bills actually did before voting for them anyway.

Holden also told PoliticsPA that:

“I don’t deserve to have pictures of children, innocent children, with masks on like we’re hurting their health.”

Actually Mr. Congressman . . . you do . . . and you are.

When President Obama decided to block new public health standards for ozone and smog, NRDC was pretty disappointed.

Turns out we weren’t the only ones. National and battleground state polling released today by NRDC, the League of Women Voters (LWV) and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) finds that President Obama’s decision to block stronger smog protections puts him significantly out of step with Americans, including Latino and suburban women.

Among the national poll’s major findings:

• Nationwide, 70 percent of Americans disapproved of Obama’s decision to block the ozone pollution standard while only 30 percent approved.  Roughly eight out of 10 women (79 percent) overall and 71 percent of Latino women disapproved of Obama’s decision on ozone.
• Nearly four out of five Americans (78 percent) want the EPA to hold corporate polluters accountable for what they release into the community.  Better than four out five women (83 percent) and 80 percent of Latino women share this view.

Commenting on the findings, the League of United Latin American Citizens' Executive Director Brent A. Wilkes said

“Delaying clean air standards endangers Latino communities across the country. This poll shows how disappointed the Latino community is with President Obama and Congress when it comes to cleaning up our air."

Americans don’t buy the line from some in Congress that EPA safeguards are bad for jobs and the economy and they support stricter safeguards against the toxic chemicals released by power plants. Women and Latino women particularly want stronger protections from toxic air and carbon pollution.

• Roughly seven out of 10  Americans (69 percent) agree with health experts who support reducing toxic air pollution from industrial sources and oppose those in Congress who say they must overrule the EPA to protect jobs;  three out of four women overall and 73 percent of Latino women agree with health experts.
• Seven out of 10 support the EPA requiring stricter limits on the amount of toxic chemicals that industrial facilities can release and 69 percent are in favor of the EPA limiting the amount of carbon pollution that power plants and industrial facilities can release. Among women overall, 77 percent support stronger toxics limits and 78 percent support limiting carbon pollution; 76 percent and 77 percent of Latino women support those limits, respectively.

League of Women Voters President Elisabeth McNamara pulled no punches, saying:

"Americans clearly are very displeased that politicians are interfering with EPA scientists.  It’s wrong to play politics with the health of our children and seniors. From the president’s decision to delay smog pollution standards to the Congress’s attempts to block EPA action on everything from mercury to soot to carbon, the voting public is fed up with politicians second guessing the science."

Suburban women in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio express even stronger support for the EPA and tougher pollution limits for toxics and carbon, and against political interference with health expert recommendations.

• For example, in Ohio, 86% of suburban women agree that EPA should protect our air and water and hold corporate polluters accountable.
• In Michigan, 79% of suburban women think that President Obama should have sided with health experts who wanted stronger smog protections, rather siding with polluters by blocking the stronger standards.
• In Pennsylvania, 83% of suburban women support limiting carbon pollution.

Independent respondents also expressed strong support for the EPA’s mission and efforts to reduce pollution, and disagree with those who would block the EPA.  More than three out of four  (77 percent) support the EPA’s efforts to hold polluters accountable and 68 percent say the President should not have blocked stronger smog standards and that Congress should not block stronger limits on toxic air pollution.

You can get the press release here. For highlights, sample size and margins of error for each poll: National results, California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

The polls, conducted between October 6-9, 2011  by Public Policy Polling (PPP), surveyed 1,249 registered voters nationwide (as well as a national oversample of 200 Latino women); and surveyed voters in nine 2012 battleground states: Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, California, Florida, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Virginia with oversamples of suburban women and Latino women in several states. 

Even more detailed findings are here.