The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), the first national standards for mercury, arsenic, acid gas, nickel, selenium, and cyanide emissions from power plants under the Clean Air Act Amendments, signed by President Bush in 1990.  The EPA says that MATS and the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), issued earlier this year, are the most significant steps to clean up pollution from power plant smokestacks since the Acid Rain Program of the 1990s.  An associated Presidential Memorandum directs EPA to implement the MATS in a cost-effective manner that ensures electric reliability.

Power plants are responsible for half of the mercury and over 75 percent of the acid gas emissions in the United States. More than half of U.S. coal-fired power plants already have pollution control technologies that will help them meet the MATS standards.  Another 40 percent of coal fired power plants are expected to implement pollution control measures to meet the standards.  Power plants have three years to comply, though there are provisions in special cases for four years or even longer to achieve compliance.  You can check for the plants closest to you.

The EPA estimates MATS will have significant public health benefits in the range of $53 billion to $140 billion at an estimated cost of $11 billion.  Mercury has been shown to harm the nervous systems of children exposed in the womb. The other pollutants that will be reduced by these standards can cause cancer, premature death, heart disease, and asthma. It is estimated that MATS could prevent as many as 11,000 premature deaths, avoid 4,700 heart attacks, prevent 130,000 cases of childhood asthma symptoms and reduce acute bronchitis among children by 6,300 cases each year. 

EPA estimates that manufacturing, engineering, installing and maintaining the pollution controls to meet these standards will provide employment for thousands, potentially including 46,000 short-term construction jobs and 8,000 long-term utility jobs.

According to the World Resources Institute (WRI) the MATS standards have been in development for over 20 years, many plants are already meeting the standards, and 11 of the 15 largest coal utilities have already informed their shareholders that they are well positioned to comply with them.