What are the new EPA rules designed to do?

In March of this year, EPA proposed new air toxics standards for coal-fired, oil-fired, and electric-generating units in the United States. These will cover mercury, arsenic, cadmium, acid gases—this will be the first time that these substances and pollutants are regulated out of these sources of air pollution. They represent some of the more significant amounts of pollution in these categories and we expect very significant health benefits—thousands of cases of asthma avoided, thousands of premature deaths avoided, hospital visits reduced, increased school attendance even—so this is a really major rule.

Why are some in the industry fighting so hard against the regulations?

Well, it has been in the works for over 20 years, and often people exaggerate what they think the impacts will be. And for 40 years, EPA has been doing its work, and the GDP of the United States has gone up over 200 percent and air pollution down over 60 percent. We expect the benefits from this rule to outweigh the costs by almost 13-to-1. And the benefits, when you monetize them, could be over $140 billion of benefits, real monetized benefits to the American public.

Are many utility companies prepared for compliance?

Again, because these rules have been in the works for over 20 years since the Clean Air Act was amended in 1990, progressive and thoughtful companies have known that these were eventually going to be required, and they have gone ahead and gotten themselves in good positions to be in compliance. In many parts of the country, over 50 percent of some of these sources have already installed some of the control equipment that would be needed. What we need now is not only to level the playing field for competition purposes, but also to level the playing field from a public health perspective around the country.