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. (Read more.)
Monday, January 24, 2005
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3 comments:
This bill sounds like a good idea, but I am extremely skeptical whenever we're told that some environmental measure will save lives, especially when it comes to air pollution measures. This number of saved lives for this legislation is staggering, considering the relatively small number of plants and the vast amount of other airborne nasties spewed by any number of other sources. I suspect that a fair analysis of these projections would show that they are based on models with assumptions that are easily tweaked to give desired results.
Let's face it: the Lung Association has a vested interest in overstating the impact and industry has a vested interest in overstating the costs.
Us usual, well--and judiciously--said, Will. But I think you would agree that somewhere, if you could parse the information precisely, there is a body count. I know it's not fair to ask you what is an 'acceptable' number--1, 6, 19? So I won't do that.
I guess I just have a thing about making exaggerated or misleading claims. Vivian Watts said no new money has gone to transportation in 17 years--that's misleading. In this case, 1,000 people are purportedly dying each year directly from coal-fired smokestacks in our states. That's probably exaggerated and certainly is unproveable. I don't think causes do themselves any good when they mislead or exaggerate, although it does fire up the base.
We ought to make industry upgrade their smokestacks as a specific act in a list of "things to do" to clean up the air. We should give industry a reasonable amount of time to make the upgrades, but not the length of time they'll request.
If you could show me one death attributed directly to the smokestack, that would be one too many. I just don't think you can differentiate between the smokestack in Chesterfield County and the SUV idling in the driveway.
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