EPA, mercury, and a disturbing story that will surprise no one

Bush’s EPA has been an embarrassment for, well, pretty much since the president’s inauguration in 2001, but its handling of mercury pollution has to be a fiasco that is unique in its humiliation.

A few months ago we learned, for example, that the Bush gang took coal industry language — word for word — and used it for new EPA regulations on mercury emissions not once, not twice, but three times. Last month, adding insult to injury, we learned that the EPA’s inspector general concluded that the Bush gang “ignored scientific evidence and agency protocols in order to set limits on mercury pollution that would line up with the Bush administration’s free-market approaches to power plant pollution.” The EPA was told to set modest limits on mercury pollution, and then work backwards from the predetermined goal to justify the pollution-friendly proposal.

And now, this.

The Environmental Protection Agency distorted the analysis of its controversial proposal to regulate mercury pollution from power plants, making it appear that the Bush administration’s market-based approach was superior to a competing scheme supported by environmentalists, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office said yesterday.

Rebuking the agency for a lack of “transparency,” the report said the EPA had failed to fully document the toxic impact of mercury on brain development, learning, and neurological functioning. The GAO urged that these problems be rectified before the EPA takes final action on the rule.

Bush’s EPA really has no shame. They wanted to make the White House plan appear to be environmentally friendly, and thus more appealing to lawmakers on the Hill, so they cooked the books, public health be damned. Now that the agency has been caught, it’s only a matter of time — if recent history is any guide — before everyone involved in this mess is promoted.

Final action on the rule is due to be issued next week, on March 15.