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More Information Needed to Back or Crack Clean Smokestacks Claims
Publisher's note: This week's "Daily Journal" guest columnist is Dr. Roy Cordato, John Locke Foundation Vice President for Research and Resident Scholar.
RALEIGH The North Carolina Division of Air Quality announced recently that mercury emissions in North Carolina are down by 70 percent. According to The News and Observer:
"State officials attribute the decreased presence of the emissions to the 2002 Clean Smokestack Act that forced the state's 14 coal-fired power plants to reduce their nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions by about three-fourths over a period of 10 years."
For those who have followed these issues, these claims should sound familiar. A few years back, the DAQ said the following with respect to reductions in ozone levels in North Carolina:
"The decline in high-ozone days goes hand-in-hand with ... The Clean Smokestacks Act, adopted by the legislature and signed by Gov. Mike Easley in 2002. ... DAQ data show that power plant emissions are declining significantly from new controls being installed."
The problem is that B following A doesn't necessarily mean that B was caused by A. And, as it turns out, the reductions in ozone were experienced equally by all of our neighboring states, none of which adopted the costly regulations of the Clean Smokestacks Act. (John Locke Foundation research from 2010 documents the facts of the case.)
Now the 70 percent reduction in mercury emissions may or may not have been due to the Clean Smokestacks legislation. Some questions that need to be answered, but apparently have not been, or at least were not reported on by the N&O, are:
•What would have been the reductions in mercury emissions if Clean Smokestacks rules had not been adopted?
•What was the rate of mercury reduction prior to the adoption of the Clean Smokestacks legislation as compared to after its adoption?
•What have been the reductions in mercury emissions in North Carolina compared over the same time period to our neighbors, who do not have such a law?
When these questions are asked and answered, they may very well show that Clean Smokestacks regulations are substantially responsible for reductions in mercury emissions. But until these questions are answered, the extent of the causal effect cannot be established.
It is important to know what proportion of the 70 percent reduction is due to Clean Smokestacks restrictions. It is very unlikely that the full 70 percent reduction is due to these regulations. In other words, there's little chance that there would have been no reduction otherwise.
In determining whether Clean Smokestacks regulations were worth the billions of dollars their implementation has cost electric utility ratepayers, it is important to know whether the legislation was responsible for 5 percent of the reduction in mercury emissions or 95 percent of that reduction.
The ultimate question that needs to be asked and answered is whether these reductions in mercury generated the expected benefits in terms of health effects. Do the fish caught in North Carolina's waterways contain less mercury, and, more importantly, are the positive health effects that are supposed to be associated with the reductions actually materializing?
If the answers to these questions cannot be determined using actual public health data, then it also cannot be demonstrated that this 70 percent reduction in mercury emissions means much at all.
Dr. Roy Cordato (@RoyCordato) is Vice President for Research and Resident Scholar at the John Locke Foundation.
Go Back
RALEIGH The North Carolina Division of Air Quality announced recently that mercury emissions in North Carolina are down by 70 percent. According to The News and Observer:
"State officials attribute the decreased presence of the emissions to the 2002 Clean Smokestack Act that forced the state's 14 coal-fired power plants to reduce their nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions by about three-fourths over a period of 10 years."
For those who have followed these issues, these claims should sound familiar. A few years back, the DAQ said the following with respect to reductions in ozone levels in North Carolina:
"The decline in high-ozone days goes hand-in-hand with ... The Clean Smokestacks Act, adopted by the legislature and signed by Gov. Mike Easley in 2002. ... DAQ data show that power plant emissions are declining significantly from new controls being installed."
The problem is that B following A doesn't necessarily mean that B was caused by A. And, as it turns out, the reductions in ozone were experienced equally by all of our neighboring states, none of which adopted the costly regulations of the Clean Smokestacks Act. (John Locke Foundation research from 2010 documents the facts of the case.)
Now the 70 percent reduction in mercury emissions may or may not have been due to the Clean Smokestacks legislation. Some questions that need to be answered, but apparently have not been, or at least were not reported on by the N&O, are:
•What would have been the reductions in mercury emissions if Clean Smokestacks rules had not been adopted?
•What was the rate of mercury reduction prior to the adoption of the Clean Smokestacks legislation as compared to after its adoption?
•What have been the reductions in mercury emissions in North Carolina compared over the same time period to our neighbors, who do not have such a law?
When these questions are asked and answered, they may very well show that Clean Smokestacks regulations are substantially responsible for reductions in mercury emissions. But until these questions are answered, the extent of the causal effect cannot be established.
It is important to know what proportion of the 70 percent reduction is due to Clean Smokestacks restrictions. It is very unlikely that the full 70 percent reduction is due to these regulations. In other words, there's little chance that there would have been no reduction otherwise.
In determining whether Clean Smokestacks regulations were worth the billions of dollars their implementation has cost electric utility ratepayers, it is important to know whether the legislation was responsible for 5 percent of the reduction in mercury emissions or 95 percent of that reduction.
The ultimate question that needs to be asked and answered is whether these reductions in mercury generated the expected benefits in terms of health effects. Do the fish caught in North Carolina's waterways contain less mercury, and, more importantly, are the positive health effects that are supposed to be associated with the reductions actually materializing?
If the answers to these questions cannot be determined using actual public health data, then it also cannot be demonstrated that this 70 percent reduction in mercury emissions means much at all.
Dr. Roy Cordato (@RoyCordato) is Vice President for Research and Resident Scholar at the John Locke Foundation.
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