“Because many people … don’t know to question the safety of the fish they eat and likely don’t think to check for fish advisories,” Moms Clean Air Force Iowa Field Organizer Karin Stein told EPA in 2023, “it is essential that EPA improve Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.”
This week, the Biden administration’s EPA did just this. As part of a suite of rulemakings addressing pollution from fossil fuel power plants, EPA finalized enhanced protections to the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS). MATS addresses mercury and other toxic emissions from coal-fired power plants, and it’s a rule Moms Clean Air Force has been working on for over a decade. We couldn’t be more excited about the stronger version of this rule—here’s why.
Tell Congress: Commit to Climate Investments
Mercury and our children’s health
If you’ve ever been pregnant, you might remember receiving a handout from your doctor like this one from the New York City Health Department: Eat Fish, Choose Wisely: Protect Against Mercury. You might also remember a feeling of confusion about the mixed messaging: Eat fish, it’s part of a healthy diet! But not too much, or it will hurt your baby’s brain!
Mercury does harm babies’ developing brains. A toxic heavy metal, the mercury we are taught to avoid during pregnancy comes from coal-fired power plants. When coal is burned for energy, mercury and other hazardous pollutants are released into the air and then fall into our waterways, where they bioaccumulate in the food chain and end up in the fish on our dinner tables. When pregnant individuals eat mercury-contaminated fish, mercury can cross the placental and blood-brain barriers, entering and damaging the fragile infrastructure of babies’ brains.
For children exposed to mercury, the impacts can echo through a lifetime: exposure can lead to neurodevelopmental harm, like learning impairments, disrupted motor function, and behavioral problems. Other harmful heavy metals released from coal plants—think arsenic, lead, nickel, and chromium—also endanger children’s health and have been linked with alarming health concerns that include neurocognitive harm, adverse birth impacts, birth defects, and cancer. Mercury has been linked to cardiovascular harm in adults as well.
LEARN MORE ABOUT HOW MERCURY CAN AFFECT BABIES AND PREGNANT PEOPLE IN OUR FACT SHEET.
Who is most vulnerable to mercury pollution?
The dangers of mercury and other forms of power plant pollution are not distributed evenly. Communities living near coal-fired power plants—which are disproportionately historically marginalized communities of color—are among the most at risk from power plant pollution, as are communities that rely on subsistence fishing as a primary food source. Because many Indigenous Tribes rely on locally caught fish for food and cultural identity, mercury pollution disproportionately harms the health of Tribal communities.
Why MATS matters—and what’s in the new rule
The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards were first implemented by EPA in 2012, and they have been remarkably effective. Since the initial implementation of MATS, mercury emissions are down 86%, acid gas hazardous air pollutants have been cut by 96%, and non-mercury metal hazardous air pollutants (e.g., nickel, lead, arsenic) have been reduced by 81%, according to EPA data.
The Trump EPA worked to undermine MATS, but over the last couple of years, the Biden administration has been working to restore and strengthen the rule. The work to address mercury pollution, however, is far from done—coal-fired power plants are still spewing hundreds of pounds of mercury into the air each year, with the six highest-emitting plants responsible for over 1,400 pounds of mercury in 2022.
EPA’s new final MATS rule will help us make significant progress in cleaning up health-threatening pollution from coal-fired power plants. Key benefits of the rule include:
- Closing the “lignite loophole”: Lignite is a particularly polluting form of coal, but in spite of this, lignite coal plants have been subject to much weaker protections than plants that burn other forms of coal. This flimsy standard, often called the “lignite loophole,” has allowed lignite plants to emit more than three times the mercury pollution of other coal plants. The updated MATS closes this loophole.
- Strengthening protections from other toxic heavy metals: The new rule will significantly limit pollution from other heavy metals covered by MATS, including arsenic, lead, and chromium. This will mean a reduction in children’s exposure to these dangerous pollutants.
- Reducing emissions from other health-harming air pollutants: The new rule will strengthen protections from other forms of air pollution, including soot (also known as particle pollution), sulfur dioxide, smog-forming nitrogen oxides, and climate-heating carbon dioxide. These pollutants are widely known to threaten public health, and are linked to pediatric and adult asthma, cardiovascular damage, adverse birth outcomes, mental health harm, cancer, early death, and more.
- Requiring continuous emissions monitoring: Up until now, coal-fired power plants have been allowed to comply with toxic metal emissions standards by testing their emissions only four days per year. This periodic testing has allowed these plants to potentially generate dangerous levels of toxic pollution on the other 361 days of the year. EPA’s new MATS will require coal plants to continuously monitor and report their emissions, holding them accountable for the actual pollution being emitted into communities.
Moms Clean Air Force and MATS
MATS was the first major rulemaking Moms Clean Air Force worked on, and mercury has been a core issue for Moms since the organization’s inception. For the past decade, Moms has mobilized parents around a key message: no amount of mercury is safe for our children. We’ve testified at multiple EPA hearings, sent thousands of messages to lawmakers and regulators, written op-eds for the New York Times, created fact sheets, and talked to everyone who will listen about the dangers of mercury.
As Moms Clean Air Force Director and Co-Founder Dominique Browning told EPA during a public hearing in February 2022, “It is inconceivable to me that anyone would think it is medically, economically, or morally defensible to release mercury into our air. We don’t need to choose between having abundant, reliable energy and clean, healthy air. We can have both.”
We’re grateful that EPA is listening, and for the finalization of the stronger Mercury and Air Toxic Standards our children deserve.