The cap-and-trade method for curbing mercury emissions will greatly harm those from the Great Lakes region, particularly American Indians, according to a new white paper released by the Center for Progressive Regulation (CPR). The report takes aim at the cap-and-trade mercury rule proposed by EPA, which plans to control mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants by setting an emission standard for mercury and then allowing plants to trade emissions up to a certain cap. Mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants are most dangerous to humans when they deposit in bodies of water. In an aquatic environment, mercury is converted to the toxin methylmercury, which is then absorbed by living tissue, particularly in fish. Humans generally absorb mercury into their bloodstreams through consuming fish. High levels of mercury in the blood can cause irreversible neurological damage. It is particularly dangerous for pregnant women and children. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 15.7 percent, or one in six, women of child-bearing age has an unacceptably high level of methylmercury in their blood. EPA predicts that about 630,000 children are born each year with unsafe levels of mercury in their blood. The CDC study also found greater levels of mercury in the bloodstreams of black and Mexican Americans than in non-Hispanic white Americans. Problems of the Cap-and-Trade Approach Though EPA has denied that the cap-and-trade strategy will cause "hot spots," concentrated areas of higher or even increased emissions, the CPR report claims that it will in fact create areas of high mercury emission, in particular around the Great Lakes region. CPR relies on EPA's own data to show that, even though mercury emissions will be decreased nationally due to the regulation, emissions will increase locally in specific areas of the Great Lakes region. That region will see total mercury emissions fall by 27 percent, but emissions will increase locally in "20 out of 44 sources in the region. Further, in 2020, emissions are projected to be higher under cap-and-trade than under MACT [maximum achievable control technology] best case for every source in the upper Great Lakes states of Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin but one," according to the report. An increase in emissions in that region is particularly harmful to the local population. The Great Lakes region geography is 23 percent water bodies, compared to a national average of 7 percent. Thus, mercury emissions in the Great Lakes region are more likely to be deposited in bodies of water where they can more easily be absorbed by the fish. Furthermore, people of the Great Lakes region eat a much greater amount of fish than the rest of the country, and Native Americans in the region eat ten times more fish per day than the average American and four times more than others in the Great Lakes region. Whereas the typical American eats 17 grams of fish per day, those in the Great Lakes regions eat 42 grams of fish per day and Great Lakes Indian tribes eat 190 grams per day. Indian women in the region already have an average of ten times EPA's reference dose of mercury, which is considered the maximum amount that can be ingested over a lifetime without adverse health effects. An Alternative to Cap-and-Trade Cap-and-Trade v. MACT According to the CPR study, "by 2010, the administration's cap-and-trade approach would permit eleven times the mercury emissions in the upper Great Lakes states than the standard maximum achievable control technology [MACT] approach would have achieved in a best-case scenario." Whereas the cap-and-trade strategy would reduce emissions by 61 percent by 2020, according to EPA analysis, the MACT project would reduce emissions by 90 percent by 2007. Compared to cap-and-trade, MACT technology would not only have a greater impact on the overall reduction of mercury emissions, but it would also require that all power plants meet the same standards, thus distributing the burden of pollution fairly and avoiding the potential for hot spots. Cap-and-trade, however, is the method currently favored by EPA and the administration because it imposes fewer burdens on industry. Rather than enacting a policy that would reduce emissions to an acceptable level, EPA plans to rely on advisories to protect fish consumers. "EPA thus moves to make fish consumption advisories a permanent feature, rather than a stop-gap measure as in the past," CPR notes, adding that this method also entails a significant reversal in responsibility for mitigating the harms of mercury. The EPA plan seeks to have consumers avoid risk by reducing or eliminating their fish intake rather than removing the risk through regulation; in essence, it shifts the burden of reducing risk from the polluters to the consumers: Those people who rely on fish as a major part of their diet, especially subsistence fishers and their families, would be warned to reduce their fish intake or to stop eating fish altogether. This approach effectively shifts the burden of addressing mercury pollution from the polluting industries to the people who depend on fish for food. The EPA strategy is representative of a larger administration approach to regulation that prefers, as CPR says, "risk avoidance over risk reduction." MACT: Available and Affordable EPA has claimed that a MACT approach would be too costly and would put undue hardship on industry. A recent report by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) uses EPA's own data to show that a 90 percent reduction in mercury emissions is achievable by 2010 for the added burden to consumers of only a few dollars per month. Using estimates prepared by EPA, NWF looked at states that rely most heavily on coal-fired power plants and projected the costs of using technology that has already been tested and in some cases is already even in use. In Getting the Job Done: Affordable Mercury Control at Coal-Burning Plants, NWF claims that using existing technology could reduce mercury emissions 90 percent by the end of the decade for the added cost to consumers of only $1 to $3 per month. Costs would be even lower in other states that are less dependent on coal. This claim counters that of EPA administrator Mike Leavitt, who recently sent a letter to Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell saying that reducing emissions by 90 percent would be extremely expensive. NWF's assertions are backed by several industry groups. In June, the Institute for Clean Air Companies told EPA that control levels of 50 percent to 70 percent were feasible between 2008 and 2010 using currently available technology, and that combinations of technology could reduce mercury by up to 90 percent at low cost. In August, an engineer with Southern Co. told the Merge Symposium on air pollution technology that "tests of activated carbon combined with fabric filters have resulted in the removal of toxic mercury from coal-fired power plan emissions as much as 94 percent, but more testing is necessary before the technology is commercially applicable," according to another report in BNA's Daily Report for Executives. Fish Advisories on the Rise As the debate rages, national fish advisories for unsafe mercury levels have steadily increased across the country. A report published by PIRG found that 32 percent of fish caught in all U.S. lakes and 22 percent of all river miles were subject to mercury advisories in 2003. According to Fishing for Trouble: How Toxic Mercury Contaminates the Fish in U.S. Waterways, 44 states issued warnings in 2003, up from 27 in 1993. Though the warnings have increased, the levels of mercury emissions have steadily decreased over the past several decades. EPA asserts that the increased advisories are due to increased reporting and testing rather than an increase in mercury levels in fish. That being the case, the rising level of fish advisories indicates that even more Americans may be impacted by mercury pollution than previously suspected. EPA plans to finalize a regulation to control mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants by March 15, 2005.