Dear NRDC Activist,

NRDC and our partners just submitted comments from 580,000 people urging EPA to cut deadly soot pollution from power plants. To everyone who took action — thank you!

Next on our critical checklist for cleaning up power plants: mercury and other toxic air pollutants.

EPA just proposed strengthening standards that limit emissions of mercury and toxic air pollution from power plants that burn coal and oil. These proposed new standards would be a much-needed upgrade, but they don’t go far enough to protect public health and the environment.

Tell EPA to further strengthen their proposed standards to cut toxic air pollution from power plants!

The power sector is one of the nation’s biggest polluters. Power plants are among the country’s largest sources of arsenic, chromium, hydrogen chloride, and mercury, a neurotoxin that can harm children’s developing nervous systems and reduce their ability to think and learn.

Reducing power plant pollution has been one of EPA’s core responsibilities under the Clean Air Act for decades. The agency has a legal obligation to regulate hazardous power plant air pollutants, which it first did in a 2012 rule known as the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS).

While most coal plants have cut emissions substantially under the original MATS, there are still some power plants across the country emitting unacceptable levels of hazardous air pollutants like mercury and metals.

EPA’s proposed update to the MATS power plant pollution standards is a major step in the right direction. The proposal would tighten the mercury emission limits for plants that burn dirty lignite coal, and it would require continuous pollution monitoring at all coal plants.

The new proposal would also tighten the standard for hazardous particle pollution. With EPA taking comment on a range of potential options for this standard, we must encourage EPA to go with the most protective option.

Urge EPA to protect public health by further strengthening their proposed new standards on mercury and toxic air pollution.

Cutting mercury and toxic air pollution from power plants not only avoids neurodevelopmental delays in children, but also reduces fatal heart attacks, lowers cancer risks, and decreases cases of asthma. And we’ve already seen significant evidence that strong standards are effective – EPA estimates that its current MATS safeguards prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks, and 130,000 asthma attacks every year.

EPA should move quickly to further strengthen these standards to ensure that all communities are better protected from the toxic air pollutants that power plants emit. These public health improvements are especially important for children and vulnerable populations and for communities near coal-burning power plants.

Help save lives! Tell EPA to move quickly to finalize even stronger safeguards against toxic air pollution.

Sincerely,

Lissa Lynch
Director, Federal Legal Group, Climate & Energy Program, NRDC