US EPA: Regulatory Impact Analysis of the Final Clean Air Mercury Rule
Description
Introduction This report provides an analysis of the benefits and costs of the final Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR). In Section 2, we discuss the potential health effects of mercury. Section 3 provides a detailed discussion of mercury in the environment, including how mercury deposited to water bodies transforms into methylmercury in fish tissue. This section also provides an assessment of the response time for systems after a change in mercury deposition. Because fish consumption is the primary pathway for exposure to methylmercury, Section 4 provides a profile of fishing activity in the United States. Section 5 presents information on concentrations of mercury in fish. Because this regulation requires control on coal-fired power plants, Section 6 provides a profile of the power sector in the United States, while Section 7 describes the emissions, control requirements, control options considered for CAMR, and the regulatory costs of the final CAMR. In addition, Section 7 also provides an assessment of impacts on small businesses and government entities. Section 8 describes the resulting change in mercury deposition from air quality modeling of the CAMR regulatory options. Section 9 presents a derivation of a dose-response function that relates mercury consumption in women of childbearing with changes in IQ seen in children that were exposed prenatally. IQ is used as a surrogate for the neurobehavioral endpoints that EPA relied upon for setting the methylmercury reference dose (RfD). Chapter 10 presents exposure modeling and benefit methodologies applied to a no-threshold model (i.e., a model that assumes no threshold in effects at low doses of mercury exposure). Chapter 11 presents the final benefit analysis numbers of CAMR giving consideration to established health benchmarks (i.e., consideration of potential thresholds on effects at low doses of mercury exposure). Finally, Chapter 12 presents a benefit analysis of reductions in PM as a result of controls applied for mercury. Table 1-1 below summarizes the benefits, costs, and net benefits of the CAMR.
|