EPA weakens regulations on mercury pollution

A coal-fired power plant in Romeoville, Illinois.
(Image credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday announced it has created a new method of calculating the costs and benefits of controlling the release of toxic metals like mercury by oil and coal-fired power plants, weakening the existing regulation.

Environmental organizations say this will likely increase air pollution, with The New York Times' Lisa Friedman and Coral Davenport writing, "By reducing the positive health effects of regulations on paper and raising their economic costs, the new method could be used to justify loosening restrictions on any pollutant that the fossil fuel industry has deemed too costly to control."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.