An editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal titled “Mercury Falling” praises the Bush administration for advocating a “cap and trade” approach to new regulations of mercury emissions that it is proposing. On environmental issues this administration and much of the conservative movement, i.e. the WSJ editorial page, are now nothing more than efficiency experts for the environmentalist left. The approach of proposals such as this one and President Bush’s “Clear Skies Initiative” is to say “we accept your goals, we accept your [junk] science, just let us use ‘market mechanisms’ to accomplish them more efficiently.” The fact is that recent research on the human health effects of mercury in fish suggests that it is simply not a health problem. Similarly, research on fine particles and ozone also contradict the administration’s stance on accepting the Clinton Administration’s regulations in these areas and the dramatic reductions in SO2 and NOx required by Clear Skies.
The WSJ praises Bush’s EPA for “resisting political pressure” from the enviors, who prefer a command and control approach to mercury. This is faint praise. On the big picture questions regarding weather mercury should be regulated at all the administration has tucked themselves in right next to Environmental Defense and the Green Party.
