28 May 20
We have perfected the practice of pulling rabbits from hats to an art form. Fourth quarter comebacks are routine on these fundraising drives.
This month however we’re going to need a full-blown miracle.
Who can help here?
Please and thank you.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
Founder, Reader Supported News
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27 May 20
Trump Economic Adviser Reduces Workers to 'Human Capital Stock'
Peter Wade, Rolling Stone
Wade writes: "While discussing whether the U.S. economy might recover this fall after the coronavirus downturn, a Trump economic adviser referred to the American worker as 'human capital stock.'"
Peter Wade, Rolling Stone
Wade writes: "While discussing whether the U.S. economy might recover this fall after the coronavirus downturn, a Trump economic adviser referred to the American worker as 'human capital stock.'"
EXCERPT:
Calling people “stock” is next-level apathetic, and the way Hassett used the term so casually lines up with the lack of empathy shown to the victims of the coronavirus by Trump’s administration and Republicans since the crisis began months ago.
Trump has moved ahead with attempts to cut food stamps during the crisis, while Republicans in Congress have balked at passing a second stimulus package and are looking to phase out coronavirus-related unemployment benefits.
Hassett was also asked about increasing funding for food stamps and said he hadn’t raised the topic with Trump, saying, “I have not discussed with the president.”
Hassert also called the requests for additional funding coming from states “absurd” and “radical.”
“There’s already a lot of money for state and local governments,” Hassert said. “I think that a lot of the requests for state and local bailouts that you’re seeing out there up on the Hill are, like, radically, radically more money than the expected shortfall for the year. … And the requests are kind of absurd.”
A thoughtful and commonsense debate can be had about whether or not the funding requests from states are “absurd.” But calling human beings “stock” — especially as essential workers are putting their lives and bodies on the line right now — is undeniably absurd and heartless.
US Attorney General William Barr. (photo: AFP)
Bill Barr Promised to Release Prisoners Threatened by Coronavirus - Even as the Feds Secretly Made It Harder for Them to Get Out
Ian MacDougall, ProPublica
Excerpt: "Celebrity prisoners like former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort have been granted home detention, but a secret Bureau of Prisons policy has kept all but 1.8% of federal inmates behind bars, where the virus rages."
READ MORE
Ian MacDougall, ProPublica
Excerpt: "Celebrity prisoners like former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort have been granted home detention, but a secret Bureau of Prisons policy has kept all but 1.8% of federal inmates behind bars, where the virus rages."
READ MORE
'In the next 66 years, fulfilling the promises of Brown requires we re-imagine and re-think our social structures.' (photo: Justin Lane/EPA)
The Coronavirus Has Laid Bare the Reality of America's Racial Caste System
Malaika Jabali, Guardian UK
Jabali writes: "Generations after Brown v Board of Education, the US is still separate and unequal."
READ MORE
Malaika Jabali, Guardian UK
Jabali writes: "Generations after Brown v Board of Education, the US is still separate and unequal."
READ MORE
Twitter took its first steps to fact check President Trump. (photo: iStock)
Trump Threatens to Shut Down Twitter After It Added Fact-Based Warning Labels to Two of His Tweets
Elliot Hannon, Slate
Hannon writes: "Twitter took its first baby steps Tuesday to rein in President Donald Trump indiscriminately spewing misinformation across the internet by adding warning labels accompanied by links to fact checks to two of Trump's recent tweets wildly alleging that efforts to bolster vote-by-mail programs during the pandemic amounted to sweeping electoral fraud."
READ MORE
Elliot Hannon, Slate
Hannon writes: "Twitter took its first baby steps Tuesday to rein in President Donald Trump indiscriminately spewing misinformation across the internet by adding warning labels accompanied by links to fact checks to two of Trump's recent tweets wildly alleging that efforts to bolster vote-by-mail programs during the pandemic amounted to sweeping electoral fraud."
READ MORE
Motorists wait to cross into the United States at the San Ysidro International Bridge in Tijuana, Mexico, over Memorial Day weekend. (photo: Melina Mara/Washington Post)
Coronavirus on the US-Mexico Border
Kevin Sieff, The Washington Post
Sieff writes: "When Manuel Ochoa started feeling sick - his body sore, his breathing restricted - he drove from his mother's home in Mexicali, Mexico, to the U.S. border."
Kevin Sieff, The Washington Post
Sieff writes: "When Manuel Ochoa started feeling sick - his body sore, his breathing restricted - he drove from his mother's home in Mexicali, Mexico, to the U.S. border."
The 65-year-old retiree parked his car at the international bridge and tried to drag himself to the country where he has permanent residency, and where his health insurance is valid. Just before he approached the port of entry, he collapsed in the sun.
That’s when U.S. immigration officials made a call that has become increasingly common during the coronavirus outbreak: for an ambulance to transport a U.S. citizen or resident from the Mexican border to the nearest American hospital.
As Mexico’s health-care system has strained under the coronavirus, small community hospitals in Southern California, some of the poorest in the state, have been flooded with Americans who have fallen ill and crossed the border. They are retirees and dual citizens, Americans working in Mexico or visiting family there.
It is an example of how easily the virus moves between countries, even as governments — and particularly the Trump administration — have attempted to shut their borders. And it’s a window into how many American lives span the U.S.-Mexico border, including families who have moved freely across the region since before that line was drawn and whose movement has continued during the pandemic.
Public health issues have always straddled the border here. Texas conducts mosquito-spraying campaigns with the Mexican state of Tamaulipas during dengue outbreaks. Arizona has joint firefighting exercises with Sonora. California and Baja California have long battled a cross-border tuberculosis epidemic together. The San Ysidro border crossing, south of San Diego, is the busiest ambulance pickup point in the United States.
For years, the U.S.-Mexico Border Health Commission conducted simulations on how the two countries would respond if a pandemic settled on the border. A special procedure was created for Mexican ambulances to transfer patients to U.S. ambulances on American soil.
Then a real pandemic struck. Now, approximately half of the coronavirus patients in several California border hospitals, including El Centro Regional Medical Center, are recent arrivals from Mexico. As a result of that surge, Imperial County, home to El Centro, has a much higher concentration of coronavirus cases — 760 per 100,000 residents — than any other county in California.
“It’s amazing how this disease has taught us that borders don’t exist,” said Adolphe Edward, the chief executive of El Centro Regional. The hospital’s staff includes 60 people who cross the border from Mexicali each day to work.
About 1.5 million Americans live in Mexico, and more than 250,000 of them live in the cities just south of California. Those cities have been hit harder by the coronavirus than almost anywhere else in Mexico.
More than 300 medical personnel in Tijuana and its outskirts have been infected, according to Yanín Rendón Machuca, the head of the local health workers union. At the city’s general hospital, only a quarter of the staff remain at work. Ambulance drivers in Mexicali sometimes wait hours while hospital workers make room in hallways for patients with covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Some overwhelmed public clinics in the border city are no longer accepting patients.
“We see patients who have been in Mexican hospitals for two, three or four days before they cross the border and come to us,” said Dennis Amundson, the medical director in the intensive care unit at Scripps Mercy Hospital in Chula Vista, Calif.
U.S. citizens and green-card holders in northern Mexico started sharing messages and Facebook posts in groups such as “Rosarito Living” and “Expats in Mexico.” If you get sick, they say, cross the border.
So that’s what Ochoa did. He’s been a permanent resident of the United States since 1978. He retired a few years ago after a career as a truck driver in Los Angeles.
On Sunday morning, the ambulance drove him the 10 miles from the international bridge to El Centro Regional, which was already treating 43 coronavirus patients and where a disaster response team was preparing to set up a military-style tent for overflow.
“This is where I have insurance, and it’s where there’s better attention,” he said at the hospital. The machine reading his resting heart rate bounced between 128 and 135 beats per minute.
During the pandemic, the influx of patients from Mexico has posed an unprecedented challenge. El Centro Regional normally serves a county with a population of about 180,000 residents, many of whom live below the poverty line. Suddenly, the hospital was responding to an additional community of Americans in Mexicali, thought to number 100,000 people.
When Edward posted a video update on Facebook last week explaining that his overwhelmed hospital would temporarily stop accepting more covid-19 patients, he received a stream of messages criticizing him for prioritizing patients from across the border.
“Send them back to Mexico,” one person wrote.
“The border should have been closed from day one,” wrote another.
Edward, a former Air Force physician who helped lead the U.S. military’s medical team in Baghdad, tried to explain that these were Americans he was treating.
“We can pretend that 275,000 American retirees in Baja California don’t exist, but they do. Or the 35,000 military members,” he said.
The spike in cases along the border comes as California is trying to reopen. In San Diego on Memorial Day weekend, restaurants and bars were crowded with people, many not wearing masks. Medical experts warn that relaxing those rules, in addition to the cases coming across the border, could lead to a surge in infections.
“I expect Mexico to peak this month, but then as San Diego opens up, we’ll see an increase from that side as well,” said Juan Tovar, a physician chief operations executive at Scripps Mercy. “Our peak is going to depend on both of those factors.”
Among the patients who have come from Mexico in recent weeks is Patricia Gonzalez-Zuniga, a Tijuana physician who works frequently with the University of California at San Diego. Gonzalez-Zuniga and her husband were both diagnosed with covid-19 last month. Her husband’s health deteriorated rapidly.
“I have no doubt that he would have died if we had stayed in Tijuana and gone to a hospital there,” she said.
Others were U.S. citizens who took their children to Mexico for more-affordable child care. Some were Americans who had lost their jobs during the early weeks of the U.S. outbreak and went to live with relatives in Mexico to save money.
“That’s where they were infected,” said Amundson, the ICU medical director at Scripps Mercy. “And they came back to be treated here.”
Before the pandemic, more than 200,000 people per day crossed the border from Mexico to California. The Trump administration closed the border to “nonessential travel” in March, and President Trump promised to “suspend immigration” to halt the spread of the virus. But after an initial dip in entries, the pace has begun to bounce back. An average of 86,000 people per day crossed the border during the week of May 11 to 18, a mix of U.S. citizens and residents and Mexicans with legal work visas whose jobs are deemed essential.
No health screenings are being conducted at the border. When a Washington Post reporter crossed last week, an immigration agent looked at him and asked, “You’re not sick, are you?” before scanning his passport.
The Department of Homeland Security’s senior medical officer for operations, Alex Eastman, told medical professionals in Southern California this month that they should be prepared for U.S. citizens or permanent residents to continue to cross the border, including for medical treatment.
The federal government has dispatched teams from the National Disaster Medical System to the border to respond to the influx of patients. The California Department of Public Health has sent its own team. Some patients are being transferred as far north as Los Angeles to relieve border hospitals such as El Centro Regional.
Forty-eight percent of patients at Scripps Mercy in Chula Vista last week had visited Mexico in the week before they were admitted. In its lobby hangs a painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Mexico’s patron saint.
“We don’t think the border should be closed, but we do think health checks and contact tracing would make a difference,” said Chris Van Gorder, the chief executive of Scripps Health, which runs the hospital. “What we don’t want is people going back and forth across the border and infecting other people.”
Last month, Van Gorder wrote a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar asking them to apply pressure on Mexico to sharpen its public health response.
“We also need the federal government to put pressure on Mexico to enforce social distancing and shelter-in-place policies as we have done in the United States,” he wrote.
On the Texas-Mexico border, the dynamic appears to be inverted. Mexican officials have expressed concern that a growing outbreak in South Texas is spilling over into Tamaulipas, which had been largely spared during the pandemic.
The United States has deported thousands of people to Tamaulipas since March. In Reynosa, Mexico, the largest city in the state, at least 16 deportees have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to Mayor Maki Ortiz. Before becoming mayor, she was Mexico’s undersecretary of health.
“Why are they continuing these deportations in the middle of a deadly pandemic, including people who are already sick and who knows how many asymptomatic people?” she said. Between the deportees and the thousands of dual citizens who cross the border every day, Ortiz worries her city will wind up importing a large outbreak from Texas.
“I say it as many times as I can on my television and radio messages: Stay in your homes and do not cross the border,” she said. “But when I look at the international bridges, I still see massive lines.”
In the nearby city of Matamoros, officials last week set up a checkpoint to question U.S. citizens crossing into Mexico and turned away some whose visits they deemed nonessential.
Some health experts say the epidemiological curves in border cities on both sides will eventually overlap.
“There are so many people crossing back and forth that it becomes one homogeneous rate,” said Arturo Rodriguez, the public health director of Brownsville, Tex. “In other words, you have three rates: the U.S., Mexico and your border rate.”
Citizens and residents in Qatar are required to have the Ehteraz app installed on mobile devices when leaving their homes. (photo: Al Jazeera)
Qatar Makes COVID-19 App Mandatory, Experts Question Privacy and Efficiency
Al Jazeera
Excerpt: "Qatar is turning to technology to help contain the coronavirus."
Al Jazeera
Excerpt: "Qatar is turning to technology to help contain the coronavirus."
EXCERPT:
Although the country has only seen 23 confirmed deaths to date, its infection rate remains stubbornly high, with more than 40,000 people infected amid a population of roughly 2.8 million.
The new Ehteraz app is seen by government officials as the latest salvo in its attempts to curb the transmission of the virus.
Starting late last week, citizens and residents have been required to have the Ehteraz contact-tracing app installed on mobile devices when leaving their homes, allowing the government to track if the user has been in touch with an infected person.
Not having the app installed could lead to a maximum fine of $55,000 or three years in prison.
The Trump administration has weakened the Mercury and Air Toxic Standards rule, or MATS, which required coal-fired power plants to reduce emissions of mercury and other hazardous air pollutants. (photo: Steve Allen/Alamy)
Who Wins and Who Loses With These 4 Regulatory Rollbacks?
Jonathan Thompson, High Country News
Thompson writes: "Since the pandemic took hold, the pace of rollbacks has only increased."
Jonathan Thompson, High Country News
Thompson writes: "Since the pandemic took hold, the pace of rollbacks has only increased."
Under a pandemic, Trump backslides pollution and wildlife protection standards.
n late March, as COVID-19 case numbers and fatalities continued to rise, President Donald Trump suggested ending social distancing, because, he said, “We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.”
This was not just another off-the-cuff Trumpism. Rather, it was a tidy encapsulation of the administration’s ideological approach to regulations in general: The cure (any regulation that might diminish the corporate bottom line) is always worse than the problem (pollution, unsafe food, dangerous working conditions). Therefore, regulations should be discarded.
Over the last three years, the Trump administration has employed this logic to eviscerate or eliminate dozens of environmental rules. Since the pandemic took hold, the pace of rollbacks has only increased, with the administration slashing rules on automobile efficiency and emissions, the disposal of toxic coal ash, the killing of migratory birds and more.
The starkest — though by no means only — display of this administration’s attitude toward cures and trade-offs was the April 16 dissolution of the legal basis for the Obama-era Mercury and Air Toxic Standards rule, or MATS, which required coal-fired power plants to reduce emissions of mercury and other hazardous air pollutants.
MATS, which went into effect in 2012, has helped prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks and 130,000 asthma attacks every year, according to an analysis by the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency. According to the Trump administration, however, the public health benefits weren’t enough to justify the projected $9.6 billion-per-year price tag. Trump’s EPA concluded: “The costs of such regulation grossly outweigh the quantified hazardous air pollution benefits.”
As is often the case, when the administration worries about “cost,” it prioritizes and inflates any costs to industry, while ignoring or diminishing those that society would incur without the regulation. The Obama-era analysis of MATS, for example, found that its health benefits, if monetized, would amount to as much as $90 billion per year. And the automobile efficiency standards that the administration is discarding would have saved consumers money on gasoline in the long run.
The architects of the rollbacks, from Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, have spent most of their careers serving industry, anti-regulation ideologues or both. A few examples of the rollbacks pushed under the shadow of the coronavirus reveal that the winners are invariably corporate interests or ideologues, while the losers, most often, are the rest of us.
Disposal of Coal Combustion Residuals From Electric Utilities (2015)
THE RULE:
Coal combustion waste — one of the world’s largest industrial waste streams — contains harmful materials that get into the air, groundwater, lakes and rivers. The 2015 rule gives the EPA authority to regulate coal ash and other solid waste as hazardous under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. When it was first created, it was criticized for being too weak.
Coal combustion waste — one of the world’s largest industrial waste streams — contains harmful materials that get into the air, groundwater, lakes and rivers. The 2015 rule gives the EPA authority to regulate coal ash and other solid waste as hazardous under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. When it was first created, it was criticized for being too weak.
THE ROLLBACK:
Opens a loophole in the rule that allows power producers to dispose of waste in unlined impoundments. (March 3, 2020)
Opens a loophole in the rule that allows power producers to dispose of waste in unlined impoundments. (March 3, 2020)
WHO WINS?
• Electric utilities and power producers that can cut costs by not lining disposal cells.
• Anti-regulatory ideologues.
• Electric utilities and power producers that can cut costs by not lining disposal cells.
• Anti-regulatory ideologues.
WHO LOSES?
• Wildlife and people who live near and drink water affected by the impoundments. A 2016 U.S. Civil Rights Commission report found that, more often than not, low-income people of color are most likely to be harmed. Coal ash impoundments at the Four Corners Power Plant in northwestern New Mexico, for example, contaminated groundwater in an area where nearly all of the surrounding population is Indigenous and at least one-third live below the poverty line.
• Wildlife and people who live near and drink water affected by the impoundments. A 2016 U.S. Civil Rights Commission report found that, more often than not, low-income people of color are most likely to be harmed. Coal ash impoundments at the Four Corners Power Plant in northwestern New Mexico, for example, contaminated groundwater in an area where nearly all of the surrounding population is Indigenous and at least one-third live below the poverty line.
Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards (2012)
THE RULE:
The transportation sector is the nation’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. The Obama-era standards required automobile manufacturers to increase fuel economy across the new car fleet by 5% each year, thereby also reducing carbon dioxide and other tailpipe emissions by an estimated 2 billion metric tons over the lives of those vehicles.
The transportation sector is the nation’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. The Obama-era standards required automobile manufacturers to increase fuel economy across the new car fleet by 5% each year, thereby also reducing carbon dioxide and other tailpipe emissions by an estimated 2 billion metric tons over the lives of those vehicles.
THE ROLLBACK:
In order to “Make Cars Great Again,” the Trump administration is revamping the rules so that, among other things, they will require only a 1.5% annual increase in fuel economy.
In order to “Make Cars Great Again,” the Trump administration is revamping the rules so that, among other things, they will require only a 1.5% annual increase in fuel economy.
WHO WINS?
• The petroleum industry, which, under the Obama standards, would have seen oil consumption drop by about 2 million barrels per day.
• The automobile industry, which will be able to cut costs, and car buyers, who will save around $1,000 per new car thanks to the rollback — assuming the automakers pass on their savings.
• The petroleum industry, which, under the Obama standards, would have seen oil consumption drop by about 2 million barrels per day.
• The automobile industry, which will be able to cut costs, and car buyers, who will save around $1,000 per new car thanks to the rollback — assuming the automakers pass on their savings.
WHO LOSES?
• Any living thing that depends on a stable climate.
• The 444 to 1,000 people who will die prematurely each year because of increased pollution.
• Drivers, who will spend at least $1,000 more on gasoline over the life of a less-efficient vehicle.
• Any living thing that depends on a stable climate.
• The 444 to 1,000 people who will die prematurely each year because of increased pollution.
• Drivers, who will spend at least $1,000 more on gasoline over the life of a less-efficient vehicle.
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act (1918)
THE RULE:
By the early 1900s, at least a half-dozen bird species, from the Labrador duck to the passenger pigeon, were extinct due to unregulated hunting. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act endeavors to avoid future extinctions by prohibiting the capture or killing of protected birds. By imposing fines as high as $15,000 per killed bird, the MBTA incentivizes industry to minimize “incidental” kills.
By the early 1900s, at least a half-dozen bird species, from the Labrador duck to the passenger pigeon, were extinct due to unregulated hunting. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act endeavors to avoid future extinctions by prohibiting the capture or killing of protected birds. By imposing fines as high as $15,000 per killed bird, the MBTA incentivizes industry to minimize “incidental” kills.
THE ROLLBACK:
In January, the Trump administration finalized a 2017 decision to ignore the prohibition on incidental takes. Now, if a protected bird is killed by a wind turbine blade, industrial pesticide, a commercial fishing longline, a toxic oil-waste pit or mine-tailings pond, there are no legal consequences.
In January, the Trump administration finalized a 2017 decision to ignore the prohibition on incidental takes. Now, if a protected bird is killed by a wind turbine blade, industrial pesticide, a commercial fishing longline, a toxic oil-waste pit or mine-tailings pond, there are no legal consequences.
WHO WINS?
• The oil industry, which no longer need worry about the million or so birds it kills annually in pits and ponds. (The Independent Petroleum Association of America specifically requested the rollback just before the Interior Department crafted its legal opinion.)
• Companies like Montana Resources and Atlantic Richfield, the owners of the Berkeley Pit, which got a taste of winning when the Trump administration refused to fine them for the 3,000 snow geese that died in the mine’s toxic waters.
• The oil industry, which no longer need worry about the million or so birds it kills annually in pits and ponds. (The Independent Petroleum Association of America specifically requested the rollback just before the Interior Department crafted its legal opinion.)
• Companies like Montana Resources and Atlantic Richfield, the owners of the Berkeley Pit, which got a taste of winning when the Trump administration refused to fine them for the 3,000 snow geese that died in the mine’s toxic waters.
WHO LOSES?
• The millions of birds killed each year by industrial infrastructure.
• The wetland conservation projects that are funded by penalty fines, which can be substantial: BP was fined $100 million under the MBTA for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill.
• Bird lovers (and everyone else).
• The millions of birds killed each year by industrial infrastructure.
• The wetland conservation projects that are funded by penalty fines, which can be substantial: BP was fined $100 million under the MBTA for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill.
• Bird lovers (and everyone else).
Mercury Air Toxics Standard (2012)
THE RULE:
Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that accumulates in food chains. It can cause lifelong neurological problems for children exposed in the womb, while exposure during adulthood can compromise the immune system and increase the risk of heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems. The 2012 rule requires the operators of coal-fired power plants — the leading source of mercury in the environment — to use the best available technology to reduce emissions of mercury and associated air pollutants. Compliance would also cut emissions of harmful co-pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide and fine particulate matter.
Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that accumulates in food chains. It can cause lifelong neurological problems for children exposed in the womb, while exposure during adulthood can compromise the immune system and increase the risk of heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems. The 2012 rule requires the operators of coal-fired power plants — the leading source of mercury in the environment — to use the best available technology to reduce emissions of mercury and associated air pollutants. Compliance would also cut emissions of harmful co-pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide and fine particulate matter.
THE ROLLBACK:
Trump’s EPA is not directly rolling back the mercury rule. Rather, it’s undermining its legal foundation by determining that it is not “appropriate and necessary” to regulate hazardous air pollutants from power plants under the Clean Air Act. That makes the mercury rule vulnerable to legal challenges. The administration is also altering how costs and benefits are calculated, inflating the costs for compliance while downplaying the benefits.
Trump’s EPA is not directly rolling back the mercury rule. Rather, it’s undermining its legal foundation by determining that it is not “appropriate and necessary” to regulate hazardous air pollutants from power plants under the Clean Air Act. That makes the mercury rule vulnerable to legal challenges. The administration is also altering how costs and benefits are calculated, inflating the costs for compliance while downplaying the benefits.
WHO WINS?
• The coal industry could reap the most from the rollback, which was included in a deregulatory “action plan” that coal baron Robert E. Murray sent to Trump early in his term. However, the industry benefits only if utilities burn more coal, which is currently unlikely, given that coal’s woes are economic, not regulatory.
• The utility industry, which could probably cut costs by shutting off pollution-control equipment. Many utilities have already spent the money installing equipment, however.
• The coal industry could reap the most from the rollback, which was included in a deregulatory “action plan” that coal baron Robert E. Murray sent to Trump early in his term. However, the industry benefits only if utilities burn more coal, which is currently unlikely, given that coal’s woes are economic, not regulatory.
• The utility industry, which could probably cut costs by shutting off pollution-control equipment. Many utilities have already spent the money installing equipment, however.
WHO LOSES?
• Anyone breathing the hazardous air, especially if they live near coal-fired power plants.
• People who eat fish. Mercury emitted into the air often ends up in the water, where it becomes highly toxic methylmercury and works its way through the aquatic food web.
• Anyone breathing the hazardous air, especially if they live near coal-fired power plants.
• People who eat fish. Mercury emitted into the air often ends up in the water, where it becomes highly toxic methylmercury and works its way through the aquatic food web.
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