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This
One Will Save Lives
HB
2742 will save thousands of lives by requiring 15
aging coal-fired power plants to install modern
pollution controls.
Peter
deFur, a lobbyist for the Lung Association, said
studies done for the EPA show that power plant
pollution causes about 1,000 deaths, more than
140,000 lost work days and 23,700 asthma attacks in
Virginia
annually.
--
Associated Press,
January 14, 2005
This
is a health care issue, an environmental issue and a
pro-business issue.
-- Del. John S. “Jack” Reid (R-Henrico)
What
Jack Reid didn’t say was this:
This piece of legislation is as close to
being a brush with pure and simple common sense as
our legislators are likely to encounter during this
session of the Virginia General Assembly.
If
you look up "no-brainer" in the
dictionary, you’ll find this bill there.
What
does it do?
It
simply requires the owners of 15 old coal-fired
generating plants to significantly reduce—by
2011—the toxic wastes they’re spewing into our
air supply—specifically sulfur dioxide and
nitrogen oxide.
So,
what’s the problem with that?
Well, it costs money—upwards of $1.5
billion, if you believe the estimates some of the
industry’s paid-to-talk folks are laying around.
Let’s
see. Fifteen
plants. $1.5
billion. Hmmm.
That works out to about one hundred million
dollars ($100,000,000) per plant?
No, I don’t believe that.
Not for one second.
Listen,
the technology for taking this stuff out of the air
has been around forever.
A similar bill was passed by the North
Carolina Legislature in 2002, with the cooperation
of Duke Power. Did
it cost? Sure
it did. About
a dollar a month on the average bill.
Is it going to save lives in
North Carolina
? No doubt
about it.
Reid’s
bill has no expressed provision for costs pass-on,
but he has indicated that he is open to some
negotiation on that.
This
thought will be heresy to some of these paid-to-talk
folks, but why not share any costs between
electricity customers and company stockholders?
Don’t stockholders have some responsibility
if their companies are—best intentions not
withstanding— killing people?
An
aside here: I’m
not even going to name the companies and/or
organizations in opposition to this good bill—or
go over the gum-beating they’re engaged
in—because, honestly, they are good, responsible
companies and organizations.
The
case they make is this:
Pollution blows across state lines.
Virginia
utility companies should not be held to higher,
"perfect" standards than neighboring
states. To do
so puts us at an economic development disadvantage.
And besides,
Virginia
is already, as part of a 29-state compact, under the
gun to meet EPA emissions guidelines in the next few
years that are far stricter than they are today.
Make
no mistake. I
like cheap electricity.
I want the lights to come on when I hit the
switch. I want
hot water to come out of the tap like it’s
supposed to. I
want, need, and quite appreciate all the wonders of
that wonderful stuff that is electricity.
And I recognize that we demand—and our
utilities strive to provide—what is essentially a
paradox: top
quality at bottom price.
But
you know what else? I’m
sort of partial to breathable air, too.
It’s a genetic thing that I seem to have
inherited.
Let’s
say the 1,000 deaths EPA number is a little high.
Let’s half it to 500 deaths a year from
coal fired power plant air pollution.
Let’s say only 500 Virginians a year are
being gassed to death—and that’s what’s
happening to you if you die from air pollution,
you’re being gassed to death.
Do we find that acceptable in
Virginia
? No, we
don’t. None
of us do. But
if we’re going to talk about the cost of achieving
"perfection" in emissions, let us
talk, too, of this: How
many deaths are acceptable?
What is the number?
Where will we trade?
HB
2742 makes a lot of sense—health care sense,
environmental sense, business sense.
--
January 31, 2005
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