Let Polluters Keep Killing People, or No? Warner, Webb Reportedly Undecided

by: TheGreenMiles

Tue Jun 19, 2012 at 14:45:52 PM EDT

Pollution from coal-fired power plants is a major cause of asthma attacks. Historically in America, rather than address those causes, we enjoy "cheap" electricity, then let people get sick - 20 million Americans a year have asthma attacks, with 2 million of those being treated in the emergency room, and 5,000 people a year dying. Economists call those people externalities - costs that don't show up on your power bill.

Thirteen years after public health and conservation groups started pushing the Clinton administration to strengthen clean air standards, the Obama administration finally delivered last December, unveiling new rules. But electric utilities and their allies, led by Sen. Inhofe, are trying to block the rule, giving $9,313,822 to Congress so far this cycle alone (61% to Republicans). Virginia parents, despite their inability to write the large checks demanded in this post-Citizens United world, are fighting back:

Kim Meltzer, a Charlottesville mother who has rushed her two-year-old son to the ER because of asthma attacks, hopes politicians will do the right thing for those who don't have a voice in Washington. "I'd like the environment to be one in which my children and all people can live in and not worry about breathing toxic fumes."

And for all the squawking in Congress about creating jobs, cutting mercury and other toxic pollution does create jobs:

The EPA has estimated that as many as 15,000 construction jobs lasting several years will result.

[NRDC Clean Air Director John] Walke says this is a win-win for the American economy and the health of the American people. "It's finally time to clean up these dirty power plants, they are being given plenty of time to clean up, and it's a tremendous health gain for Americans that we finally clean up these dirty plants."

And yet Senators Warner & Webb have to be talked into standing with public health and against giving coal plants a free pass to foul our air with mercury, sulfur oxides, nitrous oxides, and other toxic pollutants. Shameful.