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LEGISLATIVE HEARING ON S. 2995: 

THE CLEAN AIR ACT AMENDMENTS OF 2010 

JOINT HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CLEAN AIR 

AND NUCLEAR SAFETY 

AND THE

COMMITTEE ON 

ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MARCH 4, 2010 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

BARBARA BOXER, California, Chairman 

MAX BAUCUS, Montana 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

TOM UDALL, New Mexico 

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon 

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York 

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

MIKE CRAPO, Idaho 

CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee 

BETTINA POIRIER, Staff Director 

RUTH VAN MARK, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CLEAN AIR AND NUCLEAR SAFETY

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware, Chairman 

MAX BAUCUS, Montana 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon 

BARBARA BOXER, California (ex officio) 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma (ex officio) 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

MARCH 4, 2010 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Carper, Hon. Thomas R., U.S. Senator from the State of Delaware ................... 1 

Voinovich, Hon. George V., U.S. Senator from the State of Ohio ........................ 4 

Udall, Hon. Tom, U.S. Senator from the State of New Mexico ............................ 23 

Alexander, Hon. Lamar, U.S. Senator from the State of Tennessee ................... 23 

Inhofe, Hon. James M., U.S. Senator from the State of Oklahoma, prepared 

statement .............................................................................................................. 168 

WITNESSES 

McCarthy, Regina A., Assistant Administrator, Office of Air and Radiation, 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency .............................................................. 42 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 45 

Responses to additional questions from: 

Senator Cardin .......................................................................................... 51 

Senator Whitehouse .................................................................................. 53 

Senator Inhofe ........................................................................................... 56 

Senator Vitter ............................................................................................ 63 

Rizzo, Albert A., M.D., FACP, FCCP, D’ABSM, Board of Directors, American 

Lung Association .................................................................................................. 78 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 80 

Response to an additional question from Senator Cardin ............................ 118 

Durham, Michael D., Ph.D., MBA, President and CEO, ADA Environmental 

Solutions ............................................................................................................... 119 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 121 

Response to an additional question from Senator Cardin ............................ 131 

Responses to additional questions from Senator Inhofe ............................... 131 

O’Mara, Collin P., Secretary, Natural Resources and Environmental Control, 

State of Delaware ................................................................................................. 135 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 138 

McManus, John M., Vice President, Environmental Services, American Electric Power .............................................................................................................. 141 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 144 

Response to an additional question from Senator Cardin ............................ 152 

Responses to additional questions from: 

Senator Inhofe ........................................................................................... 152 

Senator Vitter ............................................................................................ 155 

(1) 

LEGISLATIVE HEARING ON S. 2995: THE 

CLEAN AIR ACT AMENDMENTS OF 2010 

THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2010 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CLEAN AIR AND NUCLEAR SAFETY, 

Washington, DC. 

The full Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m. in 

room 406, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R. Carper 

(chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Senators Carper, Alexander, Voinovich, Cardin, and 

Udall. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE 

Senator CARPER. Senator Voinovich and Senator Alexander and 

I are pleased to welcome all of you today to this hearing. We thank 

our witnesses for their preparation, for taking time to join us, and 

for your willingness to respond to our questions. 

As you know, today’s hearing is focused on Clean Air Act Amendments of 2010. It is legislation that Senator Alexander and I have 

introduced with, I think, about a dozen other co-sponsors, a bipartisan group, legislation that reduces fossil fuel power plant emissions of nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury, and to alleviate 

air related health and environmental problems from ozone, acid 

rain, and mercury contamination. 

Senators will have roughly 5 minutes for their opening statements, and I will then recognize each panel of witnesses, led off by 

Regina McCarthy from EPA. Each witness will have roughly 5 minutes to offer her or his statement to our Committee, and following 

each panel’s statement we will have two rounds of questions. 

I am going to start off with an opening statement, and we will 

see how close I can stay to 5 minutes. 

I want to very much thank Senator Alexander for being my partner in this endeavor now for years. I want to thank Senator 

Klobuchar for working with us on S. 2995, the Clean Air Act 

Amendments of 2010, and Senator Gillibrand, a member of this 

Committee, for co-sponsoring our efforts along with, I believe, 10 

other Members. We have tri-partisan support for our legislation, 

Democrats, Republicans and one Independent from Connecticut. 

We are very grateful for all of them. And I just want to thank our 

Chairman of the full Committee here, Chairman Boxer, for allowing us to hold this hearing today. 
2 

Almost 20 years have passed since Congress made significant revisions to the Clean Air Act. During that time, many polluters have 

kept polluting, albeit at a somewhat slower rate, but our Nation’s 

emission standards just have not kept pace. While there has been 

some significant environmental progress along the way, clearly we 

can still do better. If the legislation we are discussing today is enacted, we will do better. Much better. Millions of Americans will 

breathe easier as a result. 

Almost 8 years ago, when Senator Alexander and I began working together to clean up our Nation’s air, we faced three monumental challenges. And even before he and I began working together, Senator Voinovich and I tried hard to work together during 

the first term of the Bush administration. If these were easy issues 

to resolve, we would have solved them a long time ago. It is not 

for lack of effort across the aisle. 

The first challenge is that air pollution knows no State boundaries. Air pollution emitted by our oldest and dirtiest fossil fuel 

power plants does not just affect the State in which they are located. As you will hear here today, States like Delaware have implemented tough Clean Air laws only to find pollution still in our 

air. It comes over from other States. In fact, mid-Atlantic and 

northeastern States like Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island and others are located at what I call the end of America’s tailpipe because 

we receive a heavy dose of pollution from other States. 

The second major challenge is that air pollution causes serious 

health effects nationally, effects such as asthma, cancer, brain 

damage, and in some cases even death. 

According to the American Lung Association, some 6 out of 10 

Americans are exposed to harmful air pollution every day. For 

those of you who cannot read the chart, public health is threatened 

overall in 6 of 10 Americans. About 186 million people live in areas 

where air pollution endangers their lives. Court challenges have 

delayed EPA action to reduce daily emissions and to protect Americans. 

The third challenge that we face is that EPA has struggled to 

tighten emissions standards beyond the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. Over the past 10 years EPA has attempted to regulate harmful power plant emissions, but court challenges have delayed action. Delays in action mean lives lost. 

Senators Alexander, Klobuchar, Gillibrand and I, along with a bipartisan—or rather tri-partisan group of Senators, believe we need 

legislative certainty to protect public health because too many lives 

are at stake. And that is why we introduced the Clean Air Act 

Amendments of 2010. 

Our legislation provides an aggressive—but we think achievable—schedule for fossil fuel power plants to reduce harmful emissions. First, our bill calls for reducing utility mercury emissions by 

at least 90 percent by 2015. Second, our bill calls for reducing utility sulfur dioxide emissions by at least 80 percent by 2018. And 

third, our bill calls for reducing utility nitrogen oxide emissions by 

at least 50 percent by 2015. 

Those are significant reductions that the EPA agrees will save 

more than 215,000 lives over a 15-year period. Two hundred-fifteen 
3 

thousand lives over a 15-year period saves more, we are told, more 

than $2 trillion in healthcare costs. I am trying to think quickly 

what the cost of healthcare legislation that the House and the Senate have been considering is, but it is about $850 billion over 10 

years. 

We are talking here potentially saving more than twice what is 

in the healthcare bill legislation, twice in healthcare savings. And 

the cost to families? About $1.90 per month. About $1.90 per 

month. For less than $2 a month we can save three times the number of people who live in my hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. 

Passage of our bill also provides a certainty of predictability that 

industry in America needs. I think we have one more. Do we have 

one more chart? Thank you, Stephanie. 

Clean Air Act Amendments of 2010 will guarantee reductions in 

harmful SOx, NOx and mercury emissions, provide business certainty, something we have not had, and protect public health, all 

at once. 

Certainty allows companies to find the most cost effective reductions. Certainty puts Americans to work building clean energy 

equipment to sell here and export around the world, equipment 

that is stamped Made in the U.S.A. Combine business certainty 

with certainty that we will be protecting public health and we have 

ourselves what I think is a win-win situation. 

In closing, let me just say the time for delay and inaction needs 

to come to an end. We cannot wait for another 20 years to change 

our clean air laws and save lives and provide greater certainty to 

our business community. I look forward to working with all my colleagues on this Committee and off of this Committee, Democrat, 

Republican and a couple of those Independents as well, as we attempt to pass this legislation and move forward for the good of our 

country. 

All right. Normally I would yield to Senator Inhofe, who I think 

is going to be joining us, but since he is not here, I am going to 

ask Senator Voinovich, with whom I have labored in these fields 

for years and others, to good effect, I might add. One of the great 

joys of serving here in the U.S. Senate, and before that as Governor, was working with George Voinovich. 

We have before us, ladies and gentlemen, three recovering Governors, all of whom were Chairman of the National Governor’s Association. We enjoy working together, and it is just one of the—this 

can be a frustrating job, as you might imagine, but one of the 

things that I love is working with George and working with Lamar. 

George. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Carper follows:] 

STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE

I’d like to first thank Senators Alexander and Klobuchar for working with me on 

S. 2995, the Clean Air Act Amendments of 2010 and Senator Gillibrand for cosponsoring our efforts. 

I’d also like to thank Chairman Boxer for holding this hearing. 

Almost 20 years have passed since Congress made significant revisions to the 

Clean Air Act. During that time, many polluters have kept polluting—albeit at a 

somewhat slower rate—but our Nation’s emissions standards simply have not kept 

pace. While there has been some significant environmental progress along the way, 

clearly we can do better. 
4 

If the legislation we are discussing today is enacted, we will do better. Much better. Millions of Americans will breathe easier as a result. 

Eight years ago, when Senator Alexander and I began working together to clean 

up our Nation’s air, we faced three monumental challenges. The first challenge is 

that air pollution knows no State boundaries. Air pollution emitted by our oldest 

and dirtiest fossil fuel power plants doesn’t just affect the State in which they are 

located. As we will hear today, States like Delaware have implemented tough clean 

air laws only to find pollution still in the air from other States. In fact, mid-Atlantic 

and northeastern States like Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Connecticut, New 

Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, and Rhode Island are located at the end of what I call 

‘‘America’s tailpipe’’ because we receive a heavy dose of pollution from other States. 

The second major challenge is that air pollution causes serious health effects nationally, effects such as asthma, cancer, brain damage, even death. According to the 

American Lung Association, 6 out of 10 Americans are exposed to harmful air pollution every day. 

Think about that. A majority of Americans—more than 186 million people—live 

in areas where there is enough air pollution to endanger their lives or threaten their 

health. 

The third challenge is that the EPA has struggled to tighten emission standards 

beyond the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. Over the past 10 years, the Environmental Protection Agency has attempted to regulate harmful power plant emissions, but court challenges have delayed action. Delays in action means lives lost. 

Senators Alexander, Klobuchar, Gillibrand and I—along with a bipartisan group 

of Senators—believe we need legislative certainty to protect public health, because 

too many lives are at stake. 

That is why we introduced the Clean Air Act Amendments of 2010. Our legislation provides an aggressive—yet achievable—schedule for fossil fuel power plants to 

reduce harmful emissions. 

First, our bill calls for reducing utility mercury emissions by at least 90 percent 

by 2015. Second, our bill calls for reducing utility sulfur dioxide emissions by at 

least 80 percent by 2018. Third, our bill calls for reducing utility nitrogen oxide 

emissions by at least 50 percent by 2015. These are significant reductions that the 

EPA agrees will save more than 215,000 lives over a 15-year period. But if saving lives isn’t enough, our bill also saves more than $2 trillion in health care costs over the next 15 years and will cost families less than $2 a month. For 

less than $2 a month, we can save three times the number of people who live in 

my hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. 

Passage of our bill also provides the certainly and predictability that industry in 

America needs. Certainty allows companies to find the most cost effective reductions. Certainty puts Americans to work building clean energy equipment to sell 

here and export around the world, equipment that’s stamped ‘‘Made in the U.S.A.’’ 

Combine business certainty with certainty that we will be protecting public health, 

and we have ourselves a win-win situation. 

The time for delay and inaction must end. We cannot wait another 20 years to 

change our clean air laws and save lives. 

I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass the Clean Air Act Amendments of 2010 this year. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF OHIO 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you very much. I think the former 

Governors have a little different perspective on things. 

I am pleased that you and Lamar and the rest of the Members 

have gotten together on this legislation because I have, for a long 

time, sought a national policy that implements a comprehensive air 

quality strategy that helps attain our Nation’s national ambient air 

standards so that we can achieve reductions in mercury from coalfired plants and streamline the Clean Air Act requirements. 

I think most of you, and particularly Senator Carper, remember 

that I was the lead sponsor of the Clear Skies Act, and when that 

legislation stalled, I was supportive of the Administration’s strategy to implement their policy by rule. And while there were differences of opinion on how these rules should have been implemented and whether the reduction requirements went far enough, 
5 

they were generally supported by much of the regulated community 

affected States and environmental groups. It gave certainty. 

The courts’ decisions when vacating these rules left no comprehensive or cost effective policy to address NOx compliance, untangle the complicated web of overlapping and redundant regulations affecting power plants, and bring about the public health benefits we had hoped to achieve. The current situation is precisely 

what I had feared and is why Senator Inhofe and I worked so hard 

to get the Clear Skies Act passed. 

Indeed, properly coordinating the compliance obligations for SO2, 

NOx and mercury promotes efficiency and enables many companies 

to meet a substantial portion of mercury emission reduction obligations through the co-benefits achieved through SO2 and NOx control, that is, scrubbers and SCRs. For these reasons, a three-piece 

strategy continues to make sense, and I am appreciative of the 

Carper-Alexander effort. 

For 11, 12, this is the 12th year that we have tried to do something about three Ps. Because the environmental groups wanted 

four Ps. I think you remember. We thought we had to take care 

of the Smokies, and we were going to take care of the Adirondacks, 

and they said no, we have to do four Ps. So, it is wonderful that 

we are now talking about three Ps. 

I do have concerns regarding the proposal. The concerns relate 

both to provisions that are in the bill as well as provisions that I 

think should be included in it. 

In regard to what is proposed, the level and the timing of the reductions are unprecedented and cannot be achieved without significant fuel switching and increases in electric rates. And I think that 

is something that we all ought to take into consideration, particularly with the economy that we have today and the fact that people 

are just not paying their electric bills anymore because they cannot 

afford to pay them. 

For example, the bill implements new SO2 and NOx reduction requirements in 2012, less than 2 years from now. This leaves little 

time for planning, implementation or the installation of controlled 

equipment. For example, by 2015—less than 5 years from now—the 

bill requires a 74 percent reduction for SO2 and a 53 percent reduction for NOx. 

Adding to these concerns, the bill eliminates a key cost control 

feature established in the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, the allocation of emission credits to effective sources in favor of a Government auction. Under a cap-and-trade system, emissions are controlled by the level of the cap, and in this context auctions merely 

drive up electricity rates with no benefit to the environment. 

In regard to the bill’s mercury provision, the bill requires a minimum of 90 percent reduction in emissions by 2015. However, it is 

far from clear that a 90 percent control requirement can be met on 

a consistent and reliable basis across all types and plant configurations. In fact, while DOE has concluded that field testing has 

brought certain mercury control technologies ‘‘to the point of commercial deployment readiness’’ it cautions that there are ‘‘many 

fundamental questions about the long-term consistency of mercury 

removal and reliability.’’ 
6 

As told, industry projects this bill would force the early retirement of over 25 percent of the U.S. coal fleet with the difference 

being made up by natural gas. And I would like to submit for the 

record an analysis that has been done by Energy Ventures Analysis, Inc. 

Absent from the bill are provisions we all seek, regulatory certainty. In fact, the bill actually increases uncertainty and undermines options for cost effective emission reductions. For example, 

for both NOx and SOx the bill gives EPA broad authority to tighten 

emission caps after 2021. This gives industry no ability to project 

future emissions reduction requirements for planning and implementation purposes. 

And while the bill sets a minimum requirement for mercury reductions, no upper bound is established, again giving EPA broad 

authority to set limits that are out of Congress’ reach and give industry little ability to forecast compliance requirements. 

That being said, Mr. Chairman, I want you to know that I am 

pleased that our staffs have been working together, and perhaps 

we can work something out. And to the environmental groups there 

that have been involved in this for a long period of time, maybe you 

will not get exactly what you want, but we can get close to it, and 

maybe we can get certainty in this area that has been hanging out 

there forever, and ever, and ever, and ever. And I am going to work 

my you know what off to see if we cannot make that happen. 

Thank you. 

[The referenced analysis follows:] 
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Senator CARPER. Senator Voinovich, thank you very much. 

We have been joined by Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico. Tom, 

you are welcome to make a statement if you would like to. And 

thanks a lot for coming. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TOM UDALL, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO 

Senator UDALL. Thank you, Senator Carper, and I know that you 

have been working on this a very long time and this is something 

close to your heart. So, I wanted to come here. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks so much. 

Senator UDALL. Thank you for holding the hearing. 

One of the things that I think that we are talking about here is 

how to save lives and create jobs by promoting pollution reduction 

investments. The three pollutants we are discussing, nitrogen 

oxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury, cause heart disease, stroke, lung 

cancer, asthma and developmental problems for pregnant women 

and young children. 

Interestingly, President Bush and his EPA appointees sought to 

develop and expand cap-and-trade systems for these pollutants during his administration. Federal courts struck down many of these 

efforts as failing to go far enough to protect public health as required under the Clean Air Act. 

While the Bush administration’s actions primarily addressed 

eastern States, subsequent EPA action and Senator Carper’s bill 

will likely also address coal plants in the Four Corners area and 

throughout the West. Reducing pollution there is a very good thing, 

and I look forward to learning more about how EPA plans to proceed, and Senator Carper, how your legislation would affect us in 

the West. 

So, thank you for doing this, and I cannot stay too long, but I 

am going to follow this closely and have my capable staff here with 

me. 

Senator CARPER. Excellent. Thank you so much for being here, 

for your statement and for working with us. 

My partner, not in crime, but my partner in clean air and hopefully job creation and some other good things as well, Lamar Alexander. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LAMAR ALEXANDER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF TENNESSEE 

Senator ALEXANDER. Thank you, Tom. 

Yesterday, I had a visitor come by who is an entrepreneur, and 

he brought these little things. These are pellets of limestone which 

are made from CO2. Not coal ash, but CO2. In other words, he says 

that he can take the CO2 that comes out of—the carbon that comes 

out of coal plant smokestacks, and turn it into limestone that can 

then be used in concrete and aggregate the way coal ash and others 

is. And I said, well, if you figure that out, you are going to make 

2 or 3 billion dollars and solve a great big problem that we have. 

I only bring that up here today to point out that while this bill 

has nothing to do with carbon, this bill has a lot to do with our 

ability to continue to use coal as a primary source of low cost electricity in our country which I think we must do if we want to keep 
24 

jobs here. And I am optimistic that before very long there will be 

more than one way to turn to solve the carbon problem. And hopefully it is going to be a low cost problem. 

We still have some disagreements over how to regulate carbon 

coming out of coal plants. But what I think Senator Carper and I 

are saying, along with the other 9 co-sponsors of the bill, is we can 

continue to talk about carbon, but in the meantime there is no excuse remaining for not moving ahead to do what we know how to 

do with SOx, NOx and mercury. 

We know what to do. An enormous amount of work has been 

done on this. Senator Voinovich has been working on this almost 

during his whole career here. And during that time it was said by 

the environmental groups, well, we want to deal with all four pollutants, including carbon. Well, we do not need to wait for carbon. 

We can go ahead with this and continue to work on carbon. 

And then some said, well, we would rather do it with a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress than a Republican 

President and a Republican Congress. Well, we have got one here. 

That is the condition that we have. So, there is really no excuse 

remaining for not going ahead and cleaning up the air, which we 

know how to do. 

So, we have got the expertise, we have got the bipartisan support, we have got a history of hard work, we have got conditions 

that are right, we have got Republicans and Democrats who would 

like to see it done. So, we should do it this year. 

And the reasons are pretty obvious. The Environmental Protection Agency, for one thing, is going to be toughening the ambient 

air quality standards; in other words, the conditions that metropolitan areas have to meet in terms of clean air, putting almost every 

major metropolitan area in America out of compliance. 

Well, what does that mean? Well, that means—Tom mentioned 

the three of us were Governors. When I was Governor and Nissan 

came to Tennessee, what was the first thing they did? Well, they 

went down to the Air Quality Board to get an Air Quality Permit 

to operate their paint plant. And if they could not have gotten an 

Air Quality Permit to operate their paint plant, because the air 

was too dirty around Nashville, they would have taken their plant 

to Georgia or to some other place where they could have gotten a 

permit. 

So, this is a jobs issue for us. It will enable us to give certainty 

so that we can continue to use low cost reliable coal, which comes 

from America so we do not have to depend on other countries, and 

we can figure out the carbon thing as we go along. 

It is very important for our health, as has been mentioned by the 

other Senators. And in our part of the world, in eastern Tennessee, 

where I live, we have 10 million tourists who come in every year 

to see the blue haze that the Cherokees used to sing about, and not 

the smog that comes from air pollution from coal plants. And they 

are not all TVA plants, either. A lot of it blows in. 

So, I want to give Knoxville and Chattanooga and Nashville and 

Memphis and all of our cities and metropolitan areas across the 

country a chance to be able to meet their air quality standards. 

They will not have that chance unless we have strong national 

standards on pollution from coal plants of SOx, NOx and mercury. 
25 

So, my hope is to Senator Udall, Senator Voinovich, Senator Carper, all of us—I think this is not one of those occasions where we 

just take positions and shout at each other. We are not going to 

do that here. We have all done too much work on it. We have actually got a good chance to pass this bill this year. 

And I am looking forward to hearing from the Environmental 

Protection Administration and from the industry and from environmental groups and others how we can improve the bill. If we made 

some mistakes in it, we need to know that so we can improve it. 

That is what this hearing is about. If we are being unrealistic, we 

need to know that. I am very interested in what the actual cost will 

be. Those are my questions. I am for low cost electricity. I am for 

cleaning up the air. And I think this year is the time to do it. 

Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, Senator Alexander. 

I am going to ask for unanimous consent to enter for the record 

a number of letters of support for our legislation and a GAO report 

dated October 2009 on mercury control technology at coal-fired 

plants. Without objection, that will be part of the record. Thank 

you. 

[The referenced letters follow:] 
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Senator CARPER. I am pleased to welcome our first witness. 

Thank you for your patience. Senator Alexander likes to call hearings, he says that we really should not call them hearings, we 

should call them talkings. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator ALEXANDER. Because we do the talking. 

Senator CARPER. We are trying to limit that here this morning. 

We want to welcome our first panel witness so we can be hearers, 

not just talkers, and we welcome Regina McCarthy. No stranger to 

this panel, Ms. McCarthy is the EPA Assistant Administrator for 

the Office of Air and Radiation. She has spoken before this Committee on a number of occasions on past Clean Air issues. So, we 

welcome her back. 

Ms. McCarthy, you will have 5 minutes to read your opening 

statement, and the full content of your written statement will be 

included in the record. 

Again, thank you for joining us. 

STATEMENT OF REGINA A. MCCARTHY, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF AIR AND RADIATION, U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY 

Ms. MCCARTHY. Thank you, Chairman Carper, and good morning, everyone. Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting 

me here to testify today, to talk to you about EPA’s efforts to mitigate the impacts of emissions from power plants. 

As you will recall, I was here just in July of last year. Lots of 

time has passed, and I am pleased to report that EPA has made 

significant progress on our regulatory efforts. In my testimony I 

hope to discuss the status of that effort and provide the Committee 

with some information on the bill before you, the Clean Air Act 

Amendments of 2010. 

From the outset of this Administration, beginning with the 

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, President Obama has 

made providing clean energy for Americans a top priority. Not only 

is this enterprise essential to protecting public health and the environment, but it also serves as the cornerstone of revitalizing the 

economy, spurring innovation and creating new 21st century jobs. 

That is why your leadership on this issue, Senator Carper and 

members of the Committee, and that of the co-sponsors of S. 2995, 

is especially important. 

Every day, the emissions of sulfur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, 

and mercury from power plants threaten the health and quality of 

life for millions of Americans. The benefits of reducing air pollution 

from these sources are not academic. Thousands of premature 

deaths can be avoided. Lower air pollution from power plants 

means that we will spend less on healthcare, hospitalizations, and 

emergency room visits. Reducing air pollution from power plants 

can mean that we are able to enjoy more sweeping vistas at our 

National Parks, and we can more confidently eat freshwater fish 

from my home State of Massachusetts. 

But like you, I know that air pollution is not the only thing affecting American lives. Jobs are hard to come by; businesses large 

and small are struggling. In fact, some people would argue that the 
43 

U.S. cannot afford to make the investments in clean air, and now 

may not be the right time to make those investments. 

Well, President Obama, Administrator Lisa Jackson at EPA, and 

I disagree with that thinking. Making investments in our existing 

energy sources, updating them to create clean and efficient energy 

infrastructure, and making investments that create jobs here in 

America are, in fact, essential to keeping the United States competitive in the global economy. 

History clearly demonstrates that the economy can grow while 

we clean up the air. Since 1990 overall pollution emissions have 

been reduced by more than 50 percent, while the U.S. GDP, when 

it is adjusted for inflation, has increased 126 percent. 

EPA will soon propose a rule to replace the Clean Air Interstate 

Rule (CAIR). It will reduce interstate transport of SO2 and NOx

emissions in the eastern half of the U.S. to help States meet the 

current health based ambient air quality standards for fine particles and ozone. Working within the framework of the 2008 court 

decision of the D.C. court that remanded CAIR back to EPA, we 

are developing a new approach to reduce regional interstate transport of these long distance pollutants while we are guaranteeing 

that each downwind State non-attainment and maintenance area is 

getting the reductions it is entitled to achieve under the law. Past 

analysis shows that the benefits of reducing SO2 and NOx emissions from power plants in the eastern U.S. far exceed the cost. 

Similarly, following actions by the same court on the Clean Air 

Mercury Rule, EPA is developing a rule that we intend and hope 

to propose in March 2011 establishing MACT standards for toxic 

air emissions from power plants, including mercury, heavy metals 

and acid gases. We are still gathering the information needed to 

determine what the level of our MACT standard must be. But it 

is important to note that according to GAO, many coal-fired power 

plant boilers have already reduced their mercury emissions by 

more than 90 percent. 

As you have heard from EPA Administrator Jackson at last 

week’s hearing before this Committee on the EPA’s proposed 2011 

budget, we have not not completed our review of S. 2995 in its entirety. But fortunately, last summer, at your request, EPA conducted an analysis of several different emission reduction scenarios, some of which are very similar to the emissions levels in 

the time line in this bill. 

And based on that analysis, we analyzed emissions, electricity 

prices and costs, and we estimated the likely health benefits. And 

our experience in modeling similar emission reduction scenarios, as 

well as that analysis, indicates that S. 2995 would likely result in 

tens of thousands of lives saved and as much as hundreds of billions in monetized benefits each and every year, especially when 

compared to the base case which does not include major new regulations that are being contemplated. These benefits are significantly greater than the estimated costs of implementing the reductions required by the scenarios. 

I am confident that whether it is through legislation like S. 2995 

or the Clean Air Act regulations that EPA is developing, that reductions in power plant pollution will drive smart investments in 

pollution control and energy efficiency as well as innovative genera-
44 

tion technologies, all of which will pay back the American people 

in jobs, in economic growth, and in improved health and environmental protection for years to come. 

As EPA continues the air pollution rulemaking that reflect our 

commitment to protecting public health and the environment and 

heeding our legal obligations, and as you, Senator Carper, and your 

colleagues work to advance your legislation, I believe that our respective efforts will be mutually reinforcing. They will not only ensure the pollution reductions that we need but support the President’s efforts to clean up our energy supply in a way that is consistent with economic growth. 

Thank you for your efforts. I look forward to answering your 

questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. McCarthy follows:] 
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Senator CARPER. Thank you so much for your testimony and for 

your service. 

I am going to go later in the questioning. But Senator Udall was 

good enough to join us, and he has another obligation to meet, so 

I am just going to give my time to him, and I will ask questions 

later. 

Senator UDALL. Thank you very much, Senator Carper. I really 

appreciate that. 

Senator CARPER. You are welcome. 

Senator UDALL. Administrator McCarthy, you mentioned the fact 

that you like to fish and eat fish from the waters out in Massachusetts. In my old jobs, before I was in elected office, I liked to fish 

also. 

One of the things I found the most disturbing in New Mexico is 

I think today almost all of our streams are polluted with a level 

of mercury that you cannot eat the fish. And there are warnings 

out for pregnant women and other vulnerable populations on that. 

It really hits people in New Mexico when they read that, that all 

of their streams are polluted with a level of mercury that you cannot eat the fish except in very small amounts. 

So, I want to try to focus on the impact on the West, and my first 

question is, you know, the Bush administration’s Clean Air Interstate Rule primarily affected eastern States, which are downwind 

from multiple coal plants in the Midwest. And as we know, the 

Federal courts have required EPA to start over and come up with 

a better rule. 

How is the Obama administration’s response to the court ruling 

likely to affect the West, and what other EPA efforts are underway 

to reduce pollution from coal-fired power plants in the West? 

Ms. MCCARTHY. Senator, I appreciate your questions, and I sympathize and empathize with you about freshwater fish. I can remember getting into this business decades ago when fish advisories 

were almost unknown. And now they are everywhere. So, it is a 

challenge for all of us. 

I will tell you that the Clean Air Interstate Rule is still in development. We are looking at the number of States that need to be 

involved in that rulemaking in order to address the transport of 

these long range pollutants. It does primarily focus on the eastern 

States. It is not the only effort that EPA will have underway to address these issues. 

In particular, relative to the question of mercury we are also in 

the development stages, and we have put out some information requests to the power sector to look at a new utility MACT, which 

will be a maximum achievable control technology rulemaking process that we will begin in early 2011 and hope to complete by November 2011, that will address what kind of technologies are available, are cost effective, that can be required for the utility sector 

across the country. 

But you are quite right that our efforts under CAIR have been 

mainly focused on the eastern part of the United States. But the 

proposal before you and the Senate bill S. 2995 would be a national 

program, getting at all 48 States plus D.C. 

Senator UDALL. Thank you for that answer. 
65 

Now, changing direction a little bit here in terms of asking you 

about natural gas. Recently we have learned that the U.S. has very 

large supplies of natural gas, and thanks to recent discoveries of 

shale gas, deep shale gas, some energy analysts now estimate we 

have more natural gas than we do coal. 

How do natural gas power plants compare with coal-fired plants 

for the purposes of these three pollutants we are talking about 

today, and is the EPA encouraged about these recent trends in natural gas supplies? 

Ms. MCCARTHY. Thank you, Senator. I see the same information 

that you do, which is, it is very encouraging to see that there is 

so much natural gas available so that we can have the fuel diversity that I think most people are looking to have in our fuel supply. 

Natural gas units tend to be the units that run the cleanest for 

the types of pollutants that we are talking about today. As you 

know, EPA, when it set standards for utility MACT and other 

standards, we actually look at the units in terms of what fuels they 

burn and what types of technologies are available for those types 

of fuels so that we can achieve the kind of reductions that we all 

hope to achieve. 

They certainly do have a better profile. I think efforts that are 

underway here, and that we have by regulation, will attempt to 

bring down the emissions from other fossil fuel units from oil and 

from coal units, provide them the ability to upgrade, provide them 

the certainty they need to know what kinds of reductions we are 

hoping to achieve, because our goal is to bring down the emissions 

profiles of all units. 

And obviously we are interested in how the market is looking at 

natural gas, what that means for the energy market in terms of 

what is competitive moving forward, and allow the market to make 

some of those critical decisions. 

Senator UDALL. Thank you, Administrator McCarthy, and I look 

forward to working with Senator Alexander and Senator Voinovich 

and you, Mr. Chairman, and Senator Cardin, on these important 

issues. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. It will be our pleasure. 

Senator UDALL. And thank you for your courtesies, too. 

Senator CARPER. My pleasure. Thanks for joining us. 

Senator Voinovich. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Do you think that it makes sense to pass 3- 

P legislation with strict targets and timetables while at the same 

time leaving in place many of the clean air regulations that will be 

imposed on power plants over the next decade? Should it not be a 

tradeoff? That is, if you are going to force tough reductions, should 

that not be accompanied with some certainty and flexibility in how 

plants make those reductions? 

Ms. MCCARTHY. Senator, I think that I share your goal to try to 

do my best to provide certainty so that investments that are being 

made in clean energy, whether it is cleaning the existing fleet or 

making decisions about what to invest in moving forward, are done 

with sound foresight. I think we are attempting to do that in the 

regulatory structure as best we can, and I am certain that is one 

of the reasons why the Congress is looking at this bill closely. 
66 

We are happy to work with you to see how we can align those 

efforts. I will say that EPA is under obligation to look at the full 

suite of hazardous air pollutants under its utility MACT standard, 

not just look at mercury as a specific toxic. So, we do have, certainly, a broader agenda for us in the regulatory front and we are 

hoping to, in concert with what you do in Congress, work together 

to provide certainty that you are looking to achieve. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, I would think that that kind of commitment, as far as it can go, would make a big difference because, 

if I am going to come up with a new regime, I would like to know 

that is the regime and I am not going to have to be confronted with 

something next year or the year after in terms of what I am doing 

so that I can make my investments without worrying about, you 

know, making another 1, 2, or 3 years in the future. 

In your statement you reference an economic analysis of a previous version of the Carper 3-P proposal. I note that this analysis 

was not performed on this bill and did not look at the costs that 

electricity customers would incur as a result of a 90 percent mercury control requirement. 

And I remember the debate quite well in 2005 when Senator 

Lieberman and others tried to come forward with a new standard 

for mercury, and at the time the Energy Information Administration projected the cost for a 90 percent max standard as high as 

$358 billion with an average increase in national electricity prices 

of 20 percent. That was a big issue then. The additional reduction 

in U.S. mercury disposition was projected to be just about 2 percent, an almost immeasurable decline in people’s exposure to mercury. 

I understand that the cost of technology has decreased since that 

time, but the potential economic impacts warrant evaluation, and 

I would like you to be aware that this is something that I would 

like to see if, and we are going to have a request to your office on 

this, and I think we are also going to be asking the Energy Information Administration to do the same thing. 

It is the cost and benefit. If you go to 90 percent, how much are 

you going to better the reduction of mercury in terms of human 

health, so we can capture that. So often, what we have found is 

that you will take it to maybe 90 percent and then 80 percent, and 

then you go the next 10 percent, and what is the real benefit that 

you are getting in terms of improving health? This calculation is 

very important. Have you looked at that recently, in terms of the 

costs? 

Ms. MCCARTHY. We have not revisited this issue specifically 

since we took a look at last year’s bill. We did look at scenarios 

that were very similar to the targets that you are trying to achieve 

in the time line. So, we do think that, while there is not certainty, 

there is still a sense that the costs associated with this would be 

in the 1.5 to 2.5 percent increase over the course of between when 

the bill starts and 2025, which remains pretty minimal. 

I will tell you, however, Senator, that the Administrator has already pledged our full support and our technical assistance to relook at these issues. I understand that costs will be a major consideration, and to the extent that we can provide technical assistance 

and work with staff to provide you additional information and re- 
67 

look at those issues, we will do that to the extent that our resources allow. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I appreciate it. We talked about the concept 

of a lot of natural gas out there. But from my recollection, to go 

from coal to natural gas is a very expensive proposition. 

The other aspect of that is that we have to take these all under 

consideration with CO2 emissions, and if you move off from coal 

and you do not get the technology, then you go to natural gas 

which is about half the emissions for greenhouse gases. And all of 

these things work together. 

It is very interesting that with the commercial technology that 

is available today to deal with greenhouse gases, it takes about, it 

would take about one-third of a plant’s electricity to deal with the 

greenhouses gases. So, you would reduce that by one-third, and 

then you would have to provide other energy to make up the onethird, which means you would have to replicate, if you are burning 

coal and other coal facility, to make up for the loss of energy that 

you have incurred as a result of bringing down the greenhouse 

gases. 

So, I think this is one thing, Senator Carper, that we, you know, 

look at in terms of how this is all going to fit together. 

Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

I am going to go ahead and ask my questions now and then yield 

to Senator Alexander next. 

And welcome to Senator Cardin. Thank you for being here. 

Just to follow up on what Senator Voinovich was saying, one of 

the virtues of a trading system and using market, the highest market forces, to enable us to ratchet down emissions is we give flexibility, in this case to the utilities. And if it makes sense to convert 

to what is now more readily available natural gas, they could do 

that. If it makes economic sense for them to change the technology 

out in their plants, they can do that. 

I think that the idea is that we are not going to stipulate what 

to do. It is not one size fits all. One size does not fit all. But we 

will let market forces help guide that. And innovation as well. 

One of the virtues of having to set some targets out there, to say 

these are our mission’s targets, is it provides, we hope, the kind of 

certainty that we are looking for. It says to the technologists that 

are really smart people, including some folks in our audience and 

one of the witnesses in the next panel, it says, look, there is going 

to be a market. You spend the time and the money inventing this 

technology, there will be a market for it. And that is an important 

signal to send as well. 

I want to come back, in terms of certainty, to a point made by 

Senator Voinovich, and it is going to be raised later on in our panel 

today, in our second panel, by our representative from AP; I think 

it is Mr. McManus. The question is on certainty. We say, for example, in our legislation, we want to see mercury emissions reduced 

by 90 percent by a date certain. We will allow EPA to go beyond 

that. 

And Senator Voinovich says—and rightly so—well, that is the 

not the kind of certainty that he is looking for and maybe that AP 

is looking for. And I understand that there is a reason why EPA 
68 

asked for that kind of flexibility. But it tends to infringe maybe on 

the flexibility, or the certainty if you will, of the utilities themselves. 

Would you talk with us a little bit about one and how we balance 

one against the other, please? 

Ms. MCCARTHY. I think, Senator, in our individual rulemaking, 

as well as our rules that impact sectors and have to work together, 

we have to look at the appropriate balance. I think in terms of mercury technologies and the challenges moving forward that we have 

seen tremendous change in our ability to be able to address mercury and be certain about the reductions that can be achieved 

using the newly developed technologies and assessing those appropriately for each facility. 

We will always struggle with that. The difficulty that we have 

is providing certainty on the basis of today’s science and today’s 

technology is one thing. Freezing that and thinking that science 

will not develop, we will not have better understanding of both the 

long-term transport questions as well as the localized impacts of 

some of these toxics is trying to freeze that in time or just rely on 

current technology or not look at what is coming up in trying to 

provide incentives for innovation. I think that is a mistake. 

I think that the Clean Air Act readily acknowledged that the 

science does change. We learn more; technology does provide opportunities for cost effective actions to reduce toxics. And we know 

well that there are localized impacts associated with some of these 

pollutants that we are asking the States to address, not just the 

long-term transport in national standards. 

So, a market based approach can work very well. We can try to 

coordinate with that and provide certainty for any additional actions that States or that EPA made may have to take to address 

localized impacts. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Thank you. 

In the latter part of your testimony, I jotted down—I tried to jot 

down what you said; you were talking about the plan of the EPA 

to go down your regulatory road to write a follow up rule to CAIR 

and our effort to try to find a legislative path forward. I think what 

you said is our efforts—EPA and our legislative efforts—our efforts 

will be mutually reinforcing in cleaning up our air, which is very 

encouraging to me. 

Would you just talk about that a little bit more, please? 

Ms. MCCARTHY. Senator, I think that EPA is obligated by the 

courts and under the Clean Air Act to move forward to develop certain regulatory standards in a timely way. We are going to meet 

that obligation. We are going to try to do quite a bit than we have 

over the past few years at developing regulations that will stand 

the test of time legally. 

What we are seeing in the bill that you are contemplating is 

moving in exactly the same direction as our regulations would 

move. To the extent that we can align those efforts, that we can 

inform you about what we are seeing through our regulatory development process and the data that we are gathering to define these 

standards, it can inform what you think is available and readily 

available that you should move through your legislation. It will 

also inform us in our regulatory efforts. 
69 

I think we are totally aligned in terms of the direction we are 

taking. We very much appreciate the standards and the time lines 

that you have set. We can adjust those moving forward and inform 

what one another does. And the United States works best when 

Congress does its thing and we follow the law and do ours as well. 

And I think we can align very well. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Senator Alexander. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Administrator McCarthy, you are developing a mercury rule now, 

which, if we pass this law, the law would replace that, right? 

Ms. MCCARTHY. Senator, we are actually going through data 

gathering to develop a utility MACT standard which actually covers many more toxics than mercury. So, even if you move forward, 

we still have the regulatory requirement under the existing Clean 

Air Act to look beyond mercury and to do that in a way that meets 

the letter of the law. 

Senator ALEXANDER. You are not planning to have a trading system for mercury, are you? 

Ms. MCCARTHY. Actually, we do not believe that trading for toxic 

pollutants is an inappropriate design for a rule moving forward, 

and the courts have spoken to that issue as well. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Do you have evidence that mercury from 

power plants settles near the power plant? 

Ms. MCCARTHY. There is evidence of local impacts that is scientifically credible and has been peer reviewed, yes. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Senator Voinovich was asking about further 

estimates by EPA of the costs, which I am very interested in as 

well. How long would it take to do that? 

Ms. MCCARTHY. I think, Senator, we need to have a good discussion with your staff to figure out exactly how detailed an analysis 

we need. We certainly will be sensitive to your time constraints 

and try to do that in as timely a way as we can. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Yes, a lot of us would like to get on with 

the legislation, and we want to know what it costs before we do. 

So, that would be a big help if you could give a priority to that because, even those of us who are—maybe those of us who are proposing the legislation especially want to make sure we have a good 

understanding of the costs. 

The preliminary costs suggest, based upon EPA, well, the EPA 

analysis so far, shows that rates will rise between about 1.5 and 

2.5 percent by 2025 as a result of the SOx and NOx requirements. 

That is about $2 or $3 a month. Is that right? 

Ms. MCCARTHY. That is accurate. Based on the analysis that we 

did—— 

Senator ALEXANDER. Now, in saying that, is that just actual 

costs, or do you balance that against other benefits and include 

those benefits in your analysis? 

Ms. MCCARTHY. That is the actual cost. 

Senator ALEXANDER. That is just the actual cost? 

Ms. MCCARTHY. Retail cost, yes. 

Senator ALEXANDER. And then on mercury, Senator Voinovich 

was asking about that and acknowledging that there has been 

some improvement in the technology based upon what we can see 
70 

from the General Accounting Office. TVA customers in our region 

would expect an increase in rates of 13 cents to 33 cents per month 

over 15 years. So, do you have any analysis of what the separate 

mercury requirements would cost? 

Ms. MCCARTHY. I do not at this point, Senator. 

Senator ALEXANDER. What about the—are you familiar with any 

studies that, and this may be more appropriate for the next panel, 

that reflect on how rules such as the one we are proposing would 

impact on the efficiency of coal plants? In other words, whether a 

plant would have to reduce its efficiency in order to meet the rules. 

Ms. MCCARTHY. That is a good question, Senator. I am not sure 

that I am able to answer it. I can tell you that when we are looking 

at the impact of the Clean Air Interstate Rule we are relying on 

a few things. One is the ability for some of the existing plants to 

increase their heat rates, which we think they have an ability to 

do. We are also relying a great deal on continued investment in energy efficiency overall, which impacts demand and can help us stay 

within those caps. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Do you think it provides sufficient certainty 

to utilities to just leave it to the EPA after 2020 to decide what the 

rules should be, the standards should be? 

Ms. MCCARTHY. Senator, I think the best we can do is make our 

rules on the basis on what we know now about the science and 

technology and costs and do that as far out as we feel comfortable 

doing. I do not think we can really be expected to do more than 

that. The science does change. The capacity to be able to bring cost 

effective solutions to the table changes. 

And so we will do our best to provide certainty over time as you 

are attempting to do with this legislation. But looking beyond a 

2025 time horizon may not be something that we feel comfortable 

doing on the basis of information that we have. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Well, my major request to you, and I said 

this to the Administrator yesterday, is that you put a very high priority on doing whatever EPA can do to help Senator Carper, Senator Voinovich, any of us to understand the actual cost of the proposed rules on electric rates. 

I mean, if it is $2 to $3 a month by 2025, you know, that is one 

thing. If it is $20 to $25 a month, that is another thing. And if it 

is, my own view is that I want the coal plants to operate, but they 

just should not be operating without strong rules on SOx, NOx and 

mercury. And if we can do it at $2 or $3 a month by 2025, we 

ought to get on with it. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. MCCARTHY. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator CARPER. Senator Alexander, is that your first round? 

OK. 

Senator Cardin, thanks for joining us. 

Senator CARDIN. Well, Mr. Chairman, Senator Carper, I want to 

really thank you for your extraordinary leadership on the subject. 

You have been tenacious in keeping us focused on dealing with 

these pollutants, and I thank you. 

I think there is not a member of our Committee who has not had 

the opportunity to talk with you directly about this issue. And you 
71 

have brought together Democrats and Republicans in an effort to 

deal with these important areas. 

So, I just first want to thank you very much and let you know 

how much I appreciate my neighbor, Delaware, providing the leadership because, as you know, we are all in this together. 

Airborne pollutants do not stick to the geographic area in which 

they are located. In fact, the quality of air in our entire region, 

mercury reductions are critically important to all of us. We have 

the Chesapeake Bay. We know of fish advisories that have been 

given because of the high levels of mercury content. It is an extremely important issue for us to do a much more effective job. 

On sulfur dioxide, we know the impact that acid rain has on 

plants in our community, the impact that it is having on the Bay, 

the impact that it is having on our environment. With the NOx, it 

clearly is affecting air quality, respiratory issues, and I can go 

through the list and list them. And it is for that reason the Maryland legislature and other States have taken action on this issue 

when we enacted the Healthy Air Act in July 2007. 

I mention that because I know that there was a lot of concern 

when the Maryland legislature enacted this, and Maryland implemented it because there was a concern as to whether we could 

reach the type of standards that were applied at the State level. 

The State has moved forward aggressively, and quite frankly 

with minimal problems in dealing with the reductions in all three 

of these pollutants. Clearly, with mercury and sulfur dioxide, the 

limits in Chairman Carper’s bill complement what we have done in 

Maryland, and I find it very, very helpful that we have national 

policies established by Congress in this area. 

I also find that true with NOx, although I must tell you I would 

hope that we could be more aggressive on the limits on NOx. I 

think we could be more. I think the Maryland experience has 

shown us that we could be more aggressive in that area, and I 

hope, Mr. Chairman, we can work together to take a look at that 

particular issue. 

I guess this discussion, Administrator McCarthy, I find very 

helpful. I mean, when you are trying to answer the cost issues, it 

is difficult because we do not know what is going to happen with 

energy efficiencies, we do not know what is going to happen with 

alternative fuels, we do not know what is going to happen as far 

as the mix in this country is concerned, which obviously affects the 

cost issues when you are trying to reduce airborne pollutants. 

If the sources are no longer used as frequently because of an energy policy, that is going to have a dramatic positive impact on the 

cost issues. And we all hope that we are going to enact an energy 

policy for this country that is going to make us less dependent 

upon fossil fuels and that should make your, all of our jobs a lot 

easier and less costly to the consumer. And that is what we are all 

fighting for. 

I want to sort of engage you in a discussion as to how Congress, 

working with EPA, can do this most effectively. You point out, and 

rightly so, you have a responsibility to act, you are acting, you are 

going to act, as you are required to under the Clean Air Act. Congress has responsibilities, and I think Senator Carper is right in 

pursuing legislation here to deal with these three pollutants. 
72 

How do we complement each other as we go forward in this so 

that we certainly allow you to do what is necessary from a regulatory view under existing law, but then we come in and complement what you are doing through the efforts of legislation that 

our Chairman has proposed? 

Ms. MCCARTHY. Senator, you ask a very good question, and I 

think one of the most basic things that we can do together is to 

share information and to answer the questions that you are asking 

about what it means for Maryland and what it means for other 

States moving forward if Congress takes this action. What kind of 

time line should we be looking at? What emissions reductions are 

necessary? 

One of the challenges that the court told us when we do the rewrite of the Clean Air Interstate Rule was we had to be certain and 

provide data to show that the reductions we were achieving 

through that program needed to ensure that no upwind State was 

emitting pollution across its boundaries in a way that would significantly prevent a downwind State from achieving or maintaining 

attainment with the Clean Air Act standards. 

And so it challenged us to go to a different level and a more detailed level of data gathering and analysis that when the Clean Air 

Interstate Rule is ready to come out, and we are hoping in a very 

short period of time that we will be able to share that information 

and we will be able to inform one another’s discussion about how 

well to move forward. 

Now let me, if I could, just for another minute, just say that the 

other thing that we can do is to really look at history and what 

that has shown us about market programs like the Acid Rain Program and what did a market based approach do to help us achieve 

pollution reductions in a cost effective way. 

And I think one of the things we learned is that the certainty 

question is an interesting one because, back when the Acid Rain 

Program was beginning, in 1990, we estimated that the cost would 

be $8 billion a year. In 2004 the actual cost was $2 billion a year. 

And that program has achieved benefits at a cost ratio of benefits 

to cost at a ratio of 40 to 1. It has been enormously successful. We 

did not even anticipate that right, never mind the over-caution on 

the part of industry about what it might cost. 

So, what we have learned is, the certainty question is something 

that you really cannot get right if you are predicting that far into 

the future. You need to understand that the innovation is there. 

The business models, the markets will grow, if you send the right 

signals. 

And the other issue with certainty is that, frankly, there is very 

little certainty now. There have been too many laws that have been 

remanded and vacated; there are too many laws that people are 

waiting with bated breath to see how they are going to look. And 

we have an obligation on the part of EPA to be as quick and as 

forthright as we can in sort of laying out that regulatory pathway. 

But there is no certainty right now. The utility companies are having difficulty getting permits to do major modifications and to site 

new facilities because of this uncertainty. 

And so we should not worry too much about whether it is going 

to be certain 20 years from now as much as acknowledge that we 
73 

have uncertainty now that is impacting the market, that is preventing us from making the transition to a clean energy future, 

that this bill, and through regulation, we can try to provide a much 

more balanced approach and much more certainty moving forward. 

Senator CARDIN. I think that was an excellent answer. I appreciate that very much. I really do think that Senator Carper’s bill 

helps us in moving forward on the predictability you mentioned in 

regards to the three pollutants. 

But I tell you, and I think we are working together, but if we 

want to give the maximum predictability then we should get an energy policy enacted in dealing with the global climate change issues 

because then you really have, I would suggest, a much broader 

area of predictability to allow the market forces to really work for 

the desired results. 

But I think your answer as to the need for us working with EPA, 

Congress together, to give the community a stronger direction, is 

well taken, and I thank you for your reply. 

Senator CARPER. Senator Cardin, thank you for your questions, 

and thank you for your very kind words. I appreciate the nice 

things that you said about my involvement in these issues. I would 

just—I do not think you were here when we said this, but Senator 

Voinovich and I worked on this for, I think, for about 4 years during the first part of the Bush administration and for a long time 

and since then, Senator Alexander has been very much—— 

Senator CARDIN. I know Senator Voinovich’s work and Senator 

Alexander’s work in this area, and it just points out again how 

Senator Voinovich is going to be missed after this year. He has 

been an incredibly valuable member of the Committee. I certainly 

want that to be reflected in my comments. 

Senator CARPER. All right. I think that there are not many 

things that we agree on, but that would be one of them. So, thank 

you for that. 

Senator Voinovich. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I just want to comment, as a Governor, I 

dealt with this all the time. In fact, when I became Governor, we 

were not compliant with the national ambient air standards, and 

the first thing was to try and get us into compliance because we 

had businesses that would just fly over the State and say I do not 

want to be in that area. 

So, in Senator Carper’s example, you used Tennessee and said 

that if were able to do this, the air would be cleaner, and as a result of that the businesses would have less expense because of the 

fact that they would not have to put on various types of gizmos to 

keep their emissions down. And so you have to take that and weigh 

the costs of reducing NOx, SOx and mercury and then just see how 

that folds into the cost of energy. 

This is a reality. If you have a situation like my State, and the 

ambient air is down because the economy stinks, but if the economy comes back, a lot of these businesses are going to look at what 

their costs are in terms of, their energy costs, and they will conclude, as one company before we complied with the ambient air 

standards, Cooper Tile, and I will never forget it, they were going 

to move. But then we go that worked out, and they stayed, and 

they expanded. 
74 

But you will see the movement of businesses to other parts of the 

country where they do not have the problem. So, this is a delicate 

balance, and probably I think more about some of these issues than 

say Senator Carper and some of the other Senators because we are 

a manufacturing State. And one of the reasons why we are a manufacturing State is we have cheap energy. 

So, that is where I am at right now, that is why this cost is very, 

very important to me. How is going to play out? And I am not— 

I am well aware of the health benefits that are here, and sometimes I do not mention them enough. But how do we put this together so that we can do the health and at the same time do not 

kill the goose that laid the golden egg in a place like my State 

with, you know, 10.4 percent unemployment. And we want to come 

back. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

Did you want to kind of respond to anything that Senator 

Voinovich has said? 

Ms. MCCARTHY. I guess, Senator, I just wanted to agree with 

you. I mean, I think we are focusing equally, and certainly on the 

cost and benefits associated with our rules. We are looking at the 

economy as well and looking at energy prices. We know the economy is difficult right now, and we want to be able to make the improvement in air quality. 

But we certainly want to do it in a way that creates jobs in a 

way that enhances the economy and then provides a much more 

level playing field across the Nation so that the kind of changes 

that you worry about, the relocations, do not happen. Certainly we 

want to grow our manufacturing base here in the United States. 

The only thing I will mention is that I think the President has 

been pretty eloquent at talking about clean energy as a transition, 

as an approach that moves toward clean energy and brings in renewables and looks at efficiency. But he has also recognized that 

that is a transition that we need to accommodate and that coal will 

be a piece of that transition strategy. I mean, it will challenge us, 

but it is an issue that he is putting on our plate. 

Now, he has recently brought together a task force for carbon 

capture and sequestration. He understands that we need to provide 

some assistance here, some regulatory certainty on that pathway 

as well. But it is a balance, and it is one that we will be most sensitive to. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, the issue is where is our economy, and 

how long is it going to take us to get out from under where we are 

today. And you know, I think I have talked to you, and I have written to Carol Browner twice on another matter, but it is the cost of 

the combined sewer overflows in the water area. 

I have communities in my States, 100 of them, and a 13 percent 

increase in their water and sewer rates, 13 percent this year, 13 

percent next year. And there is not any kind of sensitivity. Some 

of them, they have had businesses that have closed, and so the cost 

of that is now coming down on the folks that remain in the community. 

And there seems to be—I think we need to have some consideration given into all of this. It may be, frankly, to move the date 

down 1 or 2 years to realize that we are going through this situa-
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tion. We cannot just deal with things and close our eyes to what 

is going on in terms of the people that are out there in our country 

today that are really hurting. 

Ms. MCCARTHY. The only other thing I will assure you, Senator, 

as we are going through our rulemaking process, we will ask those 

questions. We will fully explore where the technologies are available, whether they are cost effective, how quickly can we anticipate 

making the kind the shifts and reductions that we are hoping to 

achieve. And we will make our decisions with our eyes wide open, 

both in terms of the environmental benefits but also in terms of the 

costs associated with any strategy that we move forward with. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. I have just a couple of questions to follow up. 

Earlier in your testimony I think you mentioned a couple of figures 

that I thought were striking. And a question that relates to what 

Senator Voinovich is getting to, how do we strengthen our mission 

standards, how to reduce the emissions of unhealthy substances 

into our air, and at the same time not impede our economic 

growth? You cited a statistic. I think it was since 1990 maybe. Can 

you just go back and say that again? I thought that was an especially pertinent point. 

Ms. MCCARTHY. We talked about GNP, right? 

Senator CARPER. Yes, or GDP. You talked about emissions were 

down by so much, and GDP was up by a remarkable amount. 

Ms. MCCARTHY. Basically, the economy can grow, obviously, 

while we clean up the air. Overall pollution emissions have been 

reduced by 54 percent since 1980. At the same time, U.S. GDP, 

when it is adjusted for inflation, has increased 126 percent. 

Senator CARPER. You say adjusted for inflation? 

Ms. MCCARTHY. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. Well, that is good. That is a pretty striking 

point. 

Another point I want to come back to, one of the burdens that 

businesses carry in this country, particularly compared to other nations with whom we compete, is the cost of healthcare. I was struck 

by a number on one of charts that we went through earlier where 

we actually could reduce our healthcare costs in this country by 

about $2 trillion over the next 15 years. 

And I said earlier the cost of the Senate passed healthcare bill 

is about $850 billion over 10 years, fully paid for, fully offset. But 

that is roughly 2.5 times more in savings than we are talking about 

the cost of our healthcare. That is really striking. 

I want to go back to a point raised by Senator Udall when he 

was here, just to follow up on some of his concerns about the West. 

Will the new air quality standards that the EPA has proposed for 

sulfur dioxide and ozone impact the States outside of the CAIR region? Could you just come back and talk with us about that? Will 

the new air quality standards that EPA has proposed for sulfur dioxide and ozone impact the States outside the CAIR region? 

Ms. MCCARTHY. At this point, Senator, we are still in the process 

of doing the modeling and analysis on the new CAIR program. But 

at this point, I can tell you, it looks like it will be focused in a very 

similar region as the original CAIR proposal. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Thanks very much. 
76 

All right. Any other questions for Senator McCarthy? Well, there 

was a Senator McCarthy, there has been a couple of them actually, 

but—— 

Ms. MCCARTHY. I do not want to remember that. 

Senator CARPER. Well, actually, one of them was pretty good. 

Clean Gene. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. But we are glad that you could be with us 

today. Thanks for working with us. And among the takeaways, for 

me, obviously, the points I asked you to come back to, how much 

have we seen emissions go down since 1980, what has happened 

to our GDP corrected for inflation, coming back to the uncertainty 

raised by Senator Voinovich will be raised by Mr. McManus as 

well. 

When we get to, say, 2015 and mercury standards, 90 percent, 

that is our cap, and the idea that the EPA at some point in the 

future, 2020, 2025 could be beyond that, that is of concern to some 

in the utility industry. And we have to figure out how to address 

that. By the same token, technology will get better. We will figure 

out how to reduce emissions further. 

I remember being here, I think George and I were both here, for 

a hearing, I think he chaired it, our clean air subcommittee, it was 

a hearing looking at technology for mercury, about 4 or 5 years 

ago. And we were trying to figure out, could we get to an 80 percent reduction, was that feasible? And that point in time there 

were a lot of people saying we cannot even get to 80 percent. Well 

today, there are dozens of utilities and plants where we are at 90 

percent. 

So we know that the technology will get better. We can do better. 

The question is how can we avoid tying EPA’s hands in anticipation of that improved technology and actually be able to provide 

you with healthier air to breathe and at the same time be responsive to the needs for certainty on the part of the utilities? I think 

we can figure that out, and we will just work on that. 

Ms. MCCARTHY. Senator, I would be remiss if I did not point out 

that the CAIR rule is not the only rule that EPA is looking at at 

this point. As you know, we are looking at a new ozone standard 

which would be a nationwide standard. We are looking at the SO2

standard. So, as we are improving these, the challenge will be a nationwide one. But CAIR itself will be eastern focused. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you so much. It was great to 

have your here, and we look forward to working with you going forward in what you described as a mutually reinforcing partnership. 

Thank you. 

Ms. MCCARTHY. Thank you for your leadership, Senator. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks so much. 

I am going to ask our second panel to go ahead and come to the 

table, and if someone will put their name cards right where they 

belong so that they will know where to sit, that would be great. 

Thank you. 

Welcome to our second panel. I think I have had a chance to 

shake all of your hands. It is nice to see you, some of you for a second or third time. Secretary O’Mara, I see him a lot back in the 

First State. It was great of all of you to come, and I have had a 
77 

chance to read your testimony, and I look forward to hearing from 

you and having a chance to ask some questions. 

I am going to give a short introduction, and as I said to Ms. 

McCarthy I am going to ask you to keep your testimony to about 

5 minutes. If you go a little bit over that, I will not rein you in. 

If we are talking about 10 minutes, we will probably have to blow 

the whistle. But the full content of your written statements will be 

included in the record. 

The first witness we will hear from on the second panel is Dr. 

Albert Rizzo. Dr. Rizzo is here with us today on behalf of the American Lung Association. He is the Chief of Pulmonary and Critical 

Care Medicine of the Christiana Care Health Systems in Delaware, 

a real fine outfit. Dr. Rizzo’s private practice includes a strong interest in asthma, in pulmonary rehabilitation and in lung cancer, 

and he has led national research studies related to lung health. 

I am going to go ahead and just introduce each of the witnesses, 

and then I will come back to you to make the first statement. 

Next we have Dr. Michael Durham, President of ADAES. What 

does that stand for? 

Mr. DURHAM. ADA Environmental Solutions. 

Senator CARPER. ADA Environmental Solutions. OK. All right. 

His firm is developing environmental technology to enable coal 

fueled power plants to enhance existing air pollution control equipment, maximize capacity and to improve operating efficiencies. Dr. 

Durham has over 30 years of experience in the measurement and 

the control of air pollution from utility and industrial sources. 

Our third witness tells us he once spent some time in Syracuse, 

and we stole him from San Jose to come to Delaware and be our 

Secretary of Natural Resources a year ago. We are glad that he 

came, and his wife let him and came with him, although she 

misses the weather in San Jose. 

We had about 3 feet of snow in Delaware last month. We do not 

have that very often. She sent him a text message. He was in Europe, I think on a trade mission with the Governor. She sent him 

a text message from Delaware where we were suffering under 3 

feet of snow, and there was one word in that message. What was 

that word? 

Mr. O’MARA. Liar. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. Well, hopefully things are going to get better. 

It is going to be in the 50s this weekend, so maybe you will get 

out of the dog house. We are glad you are here and we are glad 

you are in Delaware, too. Collin O’Mara, Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, where he 

oversees air, energy and other environmental matters. He also 

leads the Governor’s effort to create a thriving green economy and 

sustainable natural environment. 

And George, you may be pleased to hear that our—and you may 

know this, but our fourth witness, John McManus, is a Buckeye. 

He and his family live in Columbus, the Columbus area, and he 

has a son who is going to graduate just in—what? A month or so? 

Mr. MCMANUS. Two weeks. 

Senator CARPER. Two weeks from the Ohio State University. We 

are both graduates, law school and undergrad, from Ohio State, so 
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we give you a big Ohio yell to welcome you here today. And good 

luck to your son. I have got two that are still in college and the 

days that they graduate will be days that we celebrate for more 

reasons than one. Others who have kids in school, you know what 

I mean. 

Mr. McManus is the Vice President for Environmental Services 

of the American Electric Power Service Corporation, and we are 

very happy that you could be with us here today and look forward 

to your testimony. 

Dr. Rizzo, you are up first, and we are going to ask Mr. 

McManus to hit clean up. So, let us take it from our left to our 

right. 

STATEMENT OF ALBERT A. RIZZO, M.D., FACP, FCCP, D’ABSM, 

BOARD OF DIRECTORS, AMERICAN LUNG ASSOCIATION 

Dr. RIZZO. Thank you, Senator Carper. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. 

Senator CARPER. You bet. 

Dr. RIZZO. I am Dr. Albert Rizzo, and as Senator Carper mentioned I am the Chief of Pulmonary and Critical Care at Christiana 

Care Hospitals in Delaware. I have been practicing medicine and 

treating patients with lung disease for about 25 years in Delaware. 

But today I am here as a volunteer of the American Lung Association’s National Board of Directors. In that regard, I am also here 

as an advocate for my patients, particularly a patient like Kristen, 

a 16-year-old from Middletown, Delaware, who, despite as much as 

she can manage her asthma, she wonders why she has trouble with 

sports. Also for Joan and Steve who are from North Wilmington, 

older patients of mine who have emphysema. And they get frustrated by the fact that they become prisoners of their air conditioned apartments during the summer months when the bad days 

of air quality occur. 

These are quality of life issues, certainly important, but only a 

small part of the larger more tragic burden of emergency room visits, hospitalizations and premature deaths that you have already 

heard about, mainly from polluted air. 

The American Lung Association urges Congress to pass S. 2995, 

the Clean Air Act Amendments of 2010. We are proud to support 

this bill because we fight for healthy air and healthier air as a result of this bill will save lives. 

We see a compelling and urgent need for Congress to clean up 

air pollution from the power plants. Power plants emit tons of sulfur dioxide, nitric oxides and mercury. Mercury leaves the smokestacks and settles into our rivers and lakes. It is a potent 

neurotoxin that inflicts permanent damage on kidneys, the nervous 

system and affects development of the brain. 

Sulfur dioxides and nitric oxides leave the smokestacks and become fine particles in the air, so tiny that they bypass the body’s 

natural defenses and lodge deep within the lung tissues, causing 

damage. Most at risk for these particles are infants, children, the 

elderly, and especially those with heart and lung disease. 

Nitrogen oxides from power plants are a key ingredient in the 

formation of ground level ozone or smog that blankets much of our 

country during the summer and acts as a powerful respiratory irri-
79 

tant. When inhaled, ozone damages the lung tissue much like the 

summer sun burns our skin. 

Ozone pollution at levels in the United States today contributes 

to early death. The EPA estimates that the particle pollution reductions of this bill would prevent between 12,000 and 30,000 premature deaths each year by the year 2025. Even as early as 2012, 

the EPA predicts that as many as 6,300 to 16,000 lives will be 

saved. 

The American Lung Association publishes a State of the Air Report each year. In our 2009 report, we showed that 186 million 

Americans, or 60 percent of our population, live in counties that receive a failing grade for ozone or particulate matter. 

As Senator Carper knows, thousands of our neighbors in Delaware are at risk from air pollution. Our report found that all three 

of Delaware’s counties fail for ozone, and New Castle County where 

I live, and I believe where Senator Carper lives, fail also for daily 

levels of particulate matter. In New Castle County alone, more 

than 11,500 children with asthma are at risk from the air pollution 

that can either progress their disease more rapidly and more importantly can also trigger life threatening asthma attacks. 

Senator Alexander has been very strongly committed to clean air, 

and we thank him. His home State has 15 counties that earned 

failing grades for air pollution. Blount County, home to Great 

Smoky Mountains National Park, bears a sizable burden of air pollution. Blount County suffered 77 days with unhealthful levels of 

ozone from 2005 to 2007 and roughly 26,000 children and 17,000 

seniors in Blount County are at risk from pollution. 

Attached to my testimony are the summaries from our State of 

the Air Report for each member of the Committee. 

The Carper-Alexander bill sets stringent caps for sulfur dioxide 

and nitrogen oxides and ensures that toxic mercury levels will be 

cut. Importantly, the EPA has the authority to set tighter levels, 

if needed, to protect the public or the environment. 

The mercury provisions provide a critical backstop for the forthcoming mercury Maximum Achievable Control Technology or 

MACT rule. This legislation builds upon and strengthens the existing Clean Air Act. The EPA and the States retain their critical 

tools and enforcement authorities. We will not support, in fact, we 

will vigorously oppose any changes that would undermine the enforcement of the new Source Review Program or other provisions 

of the Clean Air Act. 

Some suggest it would be better to wait for EPA to promulgate 

the Clean Air Interstate Replacement rule and the MACT. We urge 

Congress, however, and EPA, to move forward sooner to implement 

the law and maximize the reduction of these pollutants. 

Our concern is getting the pollution out of the air. Delays have 

a real and dramatic cost, a tragic human toll paid in thousands of 

lives lost each year. The public has waited too long for power 

plants to clean up. The Clean Air Act Amendments of 2010 demonstrate broad bipartisan support of this goal. 

It is well past time to clean up the Nation’s power plants, and 

please pass this life saving legislation. 

Thank you again. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Rizzo follows:] 
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Senator CARPER. Dr. Rizzo, thank you very much. Thanks for 

what you do with your life and looking out for the health of so 

many of us in the First State. 

Dr. Durham, welcome. It is good to see you again. Thanks for 

joining us. Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL D. DURHAM, PH.D., MBA, 

PRESIDENT AND CEO, ADA ENVIRONMENTAL SOLUTIONS 

Mr. DURHAM. Good morning. I am Mike Durham, President of 

ADA Environmental Solutions. I would like to thank Senator Carper and the Committee for inviting me to update you on the status 

of commercial mercury control technology. 

ADA is a company that develops and commercializes emission 

control technologies for the power industry. We have been involved 

in mercury control since the early 1990s and have recently installed over 50 mercury control systems at coal-fired power plants 

generating over 20,000 megawatts of electric power. 

We are currently constructing what is to be the largest and 

cleanest activated carbon production facility ever built to provide 

high quality, U.S. produced activated carbon to the power industry. 

The plant, which is located in northwest Louisiana, is scheduled to 

begin producing activated carbon in the spring. 

To provide you with a quick summary of the status of commercial 

mercury control technology, I would like to focus on the following 

points. 

The commercial market is well underway with over 150 contracts 

awarded to date for mercury-specific control technologies driven by 

regulations in 19 States for existing power plants and Federal regulations on new power plants. 

The accelerated development of mercury control technology has 

been a major success story with significant improvements in technologies resulting in higher mercury capture at lower costs. One 

such advancement was the use of bromine enhancements to enable 

high efficiency reduction of mercury emissions from western coals 

at relatively low costs. 

As highlighted by the recent GAO report, multiple control technologies are now commercially available to meet the needs for controlling mercury from different coals and from various equipment 

configurations. 

Another important facet of mercury control is the fate of the mercury once it has been captured. DOA and EPA have conducted a 

number of extensive studies on this issue and confirm that once the 

mercury is captured onto fly ash, scrubber sludge, or activated carbon it does not leach out of these materials, and therefore is effectively removed from the environment. 

I should point out that there are still challenges remaining in 

mercury control, especially for high sulfur bituminous coals. These 

provide additional opportunities for technology innovations and further cost reductions. 

I commend the Committee for addressing mercury in a multi-pollutant approach as this takes advantage of mercury capture that 

can be achieved as a co-benefit with other emission control systems. Therefore, costs can be minimized under a regulatory framework in which decisions about mercury control can be integrated 
120 

with decisions to control emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide 

and fine particles. 

You should also be aware that all power plants are not the same 

,and because of the differences in the age, location and design of 

the 1,100 plants in the U.S. fleet there will be significant plant-byplant variations in the costs and technical difficulties of achieving 

high levels of emission control. 

However, flexibility in the mercury control regulation can be 

used to address these differences in plant configurations and operations with the benefits of reducing overall costs of implementation, overcoming technical challenges of the most difficult applications, minimizing impacts on the reliability of electricity supply, 

while obtaining overall high mercury removal. 

Flexibility can be as simple as allowing two plants operating side 

by side, one achieving 85 percent mercury reduction and the other 

95 percent reduction, to average their missions to meet compliance. 

This would achieve the same environmental benefit while potentially saving the plant tens of millions of dollars. The recent mercury control regulations enacted in a number of States provide good 

examples of providing flexibility in the form of safety valves, phase 

in periods, and averaging between plants. 

Let me conclude by stating that the regulations provide certainty 

that drive investments, innovations, cost reductions and the implementation of emission control technology. Certainty in a mercury 

control regulation will also impact growth of new jobs as previous 

regulations of other pollutants. 

In response to State regulations, ADA began building our first activated carbon plant that created close to $400 million of construction jobs in an economically depressed parish in Louisiana. We 

estimate than a 90 percent mercury control regulation would require capital investments for additional activated carbon plants, 

creating $2 billion in construction costs and additional high quality 

operating jobs to run the new facilities as well as mining jobs to 

supply the feedstock material to make the activated carbon. 

In order to finance these operations, it will be necessary to have 

certainty in the regulations. Building a large scale activated carbon 

plant is a 3- to 5-year process which must begin prior to the regulation. However, construction cannot begin until the regulations are 

final. We have found that obtaining debt financing is challenging 

when lenders are concerned that the EPA regulation creating the 

market for the product could disappear as a result of legal challenges as was the case with CAMR. 

I thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Durham follows:] 
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Senator CARPER. Thank you. That last point was especially welcome and timely. Thank you. 

Secretary O’Mara, welcome. Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF COLLIN P. O’MARA, SECRETARY, NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL, STATE OF DELAWARE 

Mr. O’MARA. My name is Collin O’Mara, and I serve as the Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental 

Control under the leadership of Governor Jack Markell in the great 

State of Delaware. I would like to thank Senator Carper for the opportunity to share our thoughts on the proposed amendments to 

the Clean Air Act to establish a multi-pollutant regulatory program 

for the electric generating sector. 

I would also like to introduce my Air Director, Ali Mirzakhalili, 

who has been integral to the air emission efforts in reducing emissions in the State of Delaware. 

Senator CARPER. Let the record show that I can barely see Ali 

sitting right behind Collin. I can barely see his lips moving while 

you speak. 

Mr. O’MARA. I will take responsibility for butchering his last 

name again. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. O’MARA. I would be remiss not to begin my comments without recognizing first Senator Carper’s steadfast dedication to our 

environment in Delaware and his tireless efforts to ensure that all 

Americans have the right to clean, healthy air. I specifically want 

to recognize his leadership in the area of diesel emission reductions 

and the introduction and funding of the Diesel Emission Reduction 

Act which has enabled us in Delaware to implement a number of 

diesel retrofit activities, activities that would not have otherwise 

been possible without his leadership. 

So, thank you, Senator, for—— 

Senator CARPER. You are very nice to say that, but I have been 

joined at the hip with this man over here, George Voinovich. I have 

been drafting on him, as we say in NASCAR, drafting on him on 

diesel emissions for a long time, and together we have done great 

work. And we applaud what Delaware is doing—— 

Mr. O’MARA. On behalf of Delaware, thank you, Senator 

Voinovich, as well. 

Every year, millions of people across the country and the 800,000 

residents of Delaware are exposed to unhealthful levels of air pollution, resulting in lost work days, hospitalization, respiratory and 

cardiac diseases, premature mortality, and billions of dollars of adverse impacts on our economy. Delaware is not immune to these 

challenges by any stretch, and these challenges are correlated to 

the air pollution that we face in the State. And unfortunately, in 

Delaware we face some of the highest rates of cancer and respiratory disease in the Nation. 

To provide cleaner air to our citizens, Delaware has adopted 

many regulations ranging from rules for inspection and maintenance of automobiles, standards for consumer products, requirements applicable to many industrial sources, and we are advancing 
136 

energy efficiency, renewable energy activities as rapidly as possible. 

As a result, we have seen our air quality improve over the years. 

And last year Delaware had no exceedances of the old 0.08 8-hour 

ozone standard, and we are working hard to figure out what is 

needed to meet the future ozone standard which will certainly be 

lower than the 0.075 parts per million. 

One of the greatest regulatory successes that we have had is the 

adoption of multi-pollutant regulations for the coal and oil fired 

electrical and gas generating units. The outcome-driven regulations 

establish performance standards for NOx, SOx and mercury to be 

met by each unit. We found that these controls are necessary to 

meet the regulatory limits. But they are also technically feasible 

and highly cost effective. 

The coal-fired units are all meeting the mercury emission reductions in excess of 80 percent and on track to meet additional reductions of 90 percent by 2013. The units that are remaining in operation are also meeting the first phase of the nitrous oxide and sulfur dioxide reductions and are on track for the final compliance 

phase which begins at the end of 2011. 

For these and other efforts, Delaware is recognized as having one 

of the more robust air pollution control programs in the country. 

We have also worked with our regional partners in the Ozone 

Transport Commission and have adopted programs to reduce emissions generated within the Ozone Transport Region. 

And most notable, and perhaps most effective of such programs, 

was the OTC NOx Budget Program which targeted NOx emissions 

from the EGU sector, which was later mirrored and adopted by the 

EPA in the NOx SIP Call. 

Unfortunately, despite this progress, Delaware’s air quality still 

fails to meet attainment standards, mostly because of high levels 

of pollution imported from other States. As Senator Carper often 

says and said this morning, Delaware sits at the end of America’s 

tailpipe. We are heavily impacted by the air emissions coming from 

the West. The most significant contributors of these are the emissions and air pollution from the hundreds of uncontrolled or poorly 

controlled electric generating units in upwind States. 

In addition to air quality and associated health cost impacts from 

these sources, this inequity places consumers in Delaware who depend on power from cleaner EGUs in Delaware at an economic disadvantage compared to those in upwind States who have failed to 

implement such controls. And this argument is central to our pending 126 petition with EPA. 

As Senator Carper has said, air pollutants do not recognize State 

boundaries. And it is with this backdrop that we are here today to 

lend our support to a bill that proposes a national solution to an 

elusive national challenge of improving air quality by addressing 

the emissions of multi-pollutants from the EGU sector. 

Previous attempts to gain reductions from this sector prove that 

controls are feasible and highly cost effective. Unfortunately, previous efforts did not go far enough. Today, 80 percent of the SO2

emissions nationwide come from uncontrolled coal-fired EGUs and 

only 25 percent of the EGUs in the Nation have controlled SCR to 

control NOx. 
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Significant emission reductions are possible and achievable from 

this sector and without a significant lead time. And after the adoption of Maryland’s Healthy Air Act, as Senator Cardin referenced 

earlier, nine scrubbers and eight SCRs were installed on the affected EGUs within 2 years. 

The Clean Air Act Amendments of 2010 introduce a tough and 

meaningful national SOx cap which we anticipate will result in installation of controls on many of the currently uncontrolled EGUs. 

SOx emissions are a precursor to fine particle formation and reductions associated with this bill will have a significant public health 

benefit in Delaware and across the country. 

The bill also proposes an aggressive 90 percent reduction in mercury and builds upon the best practices of Delaware, Maryland and 

other East Coast States. The bill preserves States’ rights under section 110 and 126 of the Clean Air Act and it does not interfere with 

the New Source Review provisions. 

The certainty that comes along with this legislation will aid 

States and industry for planning for the design, permitting, fabrication and installation of controls which is important to both regulators and industry alike. By focusing on outcomes, this bill is 

likely to spur great innovation because it will provide predictable 

targets for industry to meet and sufficient lead time for commercialization of even more cost effective technology, as my colleague 

just mentioned. 

The bill provides EPA with the authority needed to implement 

phase one of the CAIR rule, and we would encourage the consideration of additional EPA authorities for adjusting the sulfur dioxide 

emission budgets and annual and/or seasonal NOx budgets as necessary to protect public health, meet current and new standards, 

and address transport emissions as new science becomes available. 

Finally, I would like to mention briefly the 53 percent nationwide 

reduction in NOx. This is an important step forward. On this point, 

please let me share our experience with you in Delaware. 

What we have learned through our collaboration with the OTC 

is that controlling NOx emissions from EGUs may be the silver bullet for meeting ozone standards. We have learned that significant 

NOx reductions are feasible, cost effective and necessary for us to 

reach attainment, and readily achievable through existing cost effective technology that is improving every day. 

We believe that adopting a more aggressive approach or a more 

accelerated implementation time line for NOx would help States 

like Delaware achieve attainment of the ozone standard even more 

quickly than would be otherwise possible. 

In conclusion, we would like to thank Senator Carper for his 

leadership. We believe that the proposed legislation represents a 

very important step forward in reducing harmful emissions from 

EGUs across our Nation and will improve health outcomes in Delaware and across the country. 

We look forward to working with the Committee as you continue 

to refine and strengthen this significant legislation. We thank you 

for the opportunity to be with you today, and we look forward to 

your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. O’Mara follows:] 
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Senator CARPER. Thank you for your very thoughtful testimony 

and for your very kind words as well. We appreciate your leadership and your energy, the energy that you have brought to Delaware and clean energy, clean energy to our environment into our 

economy. 

Mr. McManus, again, welcome. Sometimes, when I find out folks 

at the witness table are from like Ohio or Ohio State, I will start 

off their introduction by saying OH to see how they respond. 

Mr. MCMANUS. IO. 

Senator CARPER. OK, he is an Ohio State guy. For those of you 

who have never been to an Ohio State football game, one side of 

the stadium the fans call out OH and the other side IO and they 

do it forever, especially when we are playing Michigan. And it is 

quite an exciting moment. 

But we are delighted that you are here, and in the spirit of trying to figure out how to work through this together and come up 

with a way that will enable our industries to make money and for 

us to clean up our environment, and provide some certainty not 

just for AP but also for the company that Mr. Durham represents 

and for the folks that are counting on us to help clean up our air 

as we go forth. 

So, thanks, and we welcome you. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN M. MCMANUS, VICE PRESENT, 

ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES, AMERICAN ELECTRIC POWER 

Mr. MCMANUS. Thanks, Chairman Carper, and the Committee. 

I appreciate the opportunity to participate in today’s hearing. 

AEP has achieved very substantial emission reductions over the 

last two decades. Our efforts began in the 1990s under the Acid 

Rain Program and continued with the NOx SIP Call and the CAIR 

Program in the past decade. In the last 10 years our annual SO2

emissions have been reduced 600,000 tons, and our annual NOx

emissions have declined 365,000 tons. We also know that we have 

achieved significant mercury emission reductions as a result of our 

SO2 and NOx emission controls. 

As the first phase of CAIR has taken effect in 2009 and 2010 

amid some of the most difficult times our country has faced, our 

customers have shouldered the cost increases associated with these 

significant investments. We expect this transformation of our coal 

fleet to continue in the coming decade, even without new legislation. 

We know that there will be new requirements for further emission reductions in the future. We heard from Administrator McCarthy this morning about what EPA is working on. Although committed to working with EPA on the development of future control 

requirements, we have concerns about the timing of compliance associated with multiple and overlapping programs, as well as the 

stringency and structure of the underlying regulatory requirements. 

Clean Air Act Amendments that achieve environmental objectives with reasonable schedules and compliance flexibility could be 

extremely helpful. We have concerns about the Clean Air Act 

Amendments of 2010 as currently proposed. While the bill would 

retain the flexibility of regional emission programs for SO2 and 
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NOx, other provisions in the proposal are troublesome and would 

unnecessarily increase the cost of compliance. 

AEP applauds the structure of the SO2 and NOx programs in the 

bill, with the reliance on an allowance based system. However, the 

schedule for implementing the new program’s more stringent emission caps may be too fast. Under the proposal, the first tighter caps 

apply in 2012 with EPA rules to establish allocation due at the end 

of 2011. This allows only 1 year for implementation. 

Increasing the stringency of the caps in 2012 may create major 

logistical challenges for the electric power sector. Companies will 

not have sufficient time to schedule outages and install emission 

controls that may be necessary for meeting new reduction requirements. The bill should provide a longer planning horizon before 

tightening the SO2 and NOx emission caps. 

The bill would establish a much more aggressive allowance auction program than currently exists under the Acid Rain auction. 

This program to auction both SO2 and NOx allowances will unnecessarily add to the costs of compliance with no incremental environmental benefit and we believe should be eliminated from the 

program. 

The bill prohibits EPA from distributing NOx allowances to affected units based on heat input fuel adjustment factors under the 

annual NOx cap-and-trade program. The elimination of fuel adjustment factors would penalize coal-fired generation and provide a 

windfall of NOx allowances to gas- and oil-fired generation. The bill 

should direct EPA to use fuel adjustment factors in allocating NOx

allowances as provided in the current CAIR rule. 

The bill requires EPA to promulgate, by January 2012, sourcespecific standards for reducing mercury from coal-fired units with 

an objective of achieving at least a 90 percent reduction overall in 

emissions from the entire source category. AEP agrees with the 

bill’s focus on reducing mercury emissions from coal-fired power 

plants. However, we have significant concerns about the 

achievability of a 90 percent reduction level for the source category 

as a whole. 

We are also concerned about the January 2015 deadline to 

achieve the mercury performance standard. This deadline provides 

only 3 years to achieve compliance once EPA promulgates the new 

standards. The bill should provide affected utilities with more time 

to develop and implement a compliance strategy for meeting the 

mercury control requirements. 

As the bill is currently written EPA is not relieved from the plan 

to set standards for other non-mercury hazardous air pollutants. 

Regulation of these non-mercury HAPs is a significant concern. 

The focus of only mercury in the bill is consistent with the results of the study that EPA conducted under section 112(n)(1)(A) 

of the Clean Air Act which concluded that there was not sufficient 

public health risks for non-mercury hazardous air pollutants emitted from coal-fired power plants. Given the results of that study, 

we believe the bill should expressly limit EPA’s ability to regulate 

non-mercury HAPs emissions from coal-fired power plants. 

In summary, AEP recognizes that there are many environmental 

drivers for additional emission reductions from our power plants, 

and we are already planning for many of these reductions. How-
143 

ever, it is critical that any comprehensive program like the one envisioned in the Clean Air Act Amendments of 2010 be structured 

in a way to allow for cost effective implementation of reductions on 

a reasonable schedule so as to minimize the impacts on our customers and on the reliability of the electricity grid. 

I would like to thank the Committee would the opportunity to 

participate today. I welcome your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McManus follows:] 
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Senator CARPER. We were glad that you could come. Thank you 

for joining us, and thank you for your testimony. 

I am going to ask Senator Voinovich to lead off the questioning 

for this panel. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

Mr. McManus, GAO has done a study—and it has been mentioned several times in the testimony written—supporting a 90 percent stack by stack reduction in mercury emissions. But that study 

focused on a small subset of units, 25 out of several hundred coal 

units. GAO even acknowledged in their study that the results only 

applied to about three-quarters of the coal fleet based on their extrapolation of boiler configurations and coal type. 

In sum, their results do not support that all units can achieve 

this 90 percent removal. Can you speak to your company’s experience with mercury coal technology and the impacts that Senator 

Carper’s proposal might have on the costs to your customers? 

Mr. MCMANUS. Yes, Senator. We have been very active in trying 

to understand mercury control technology since the Clean America 

Rule was proposed. We have tested, on one of our large units, it 

has an SO2 scrubber and an SCR for NOx—— Senator VOINOVICH. Is that the Gavin plant? 

Mr. MCMANUS. At Gavin plant, yes, and the coal benefit reduction in mercury. And we have seen substantial reduction in mercury, but it does not reach quite 90 percent. So, that is one concern 

we have, that if a lot of the reduction is to come from this combination of SO2 and NOx controls, can you reach 90 percent with that 

combination? We got in the 80s, but we did not quite get to 90. 

We also have looked at activated carbon injection into existing 

precipitators. We work with ADA, actually, on some of that program. And we have seen varied results there on a unit at the 

Conesville plant, which burns a high sulfur coal. We saw a little 

mercury reduction because of an interference with sulfur dioxide 

and the GAO report actually points out that that is a complication 

on some high sulfur coal units. 

We have also tested it on a unit with primarily Powder River 

Basin coal, and we saw substantial reductions there. We have actually implemented full scale on two 1,300-megawatt units in Indiana 

and activated carbon injection system. We are in early stages of operating that and do not have good data yet on the overall mercury 

reduction, but it has been very promising. 

So, I think the developments in technology are very promising. 

The GAO report points to that. But it is on a limited number of 

units. And I did find interesting that three of the specific areas 

that they identified as a challenge, sulfur trioxide, interference 

with higher sulfur coal, units with hot side precipitators and lignite 

units, we have all three of those circumstances on the AEP system. 

And while we see promise in the technology and improvement, we 

have significant concerns still as we look at our system and how 

you would apply this. 

A key aspect of it would be what kind of flexibility can you provide in the rules. So, we would really encourage, as you look at this 

provision in the bill, providing guidance to EPA on what types of 

flexibility they can provide as they establish the standard, because 

flexibility would be very important. 
157 

Senator VOINOVICH. The last time I looked at this real carefully, 

one of the arguments that was made was that the stage of the technology it would be extremely expensive for you to bring that technology in and that you were far better off putting the money into 

NOx and SOx because you got the coal benefits in terms of mercury. 

And you are saying that, say the Gavin plant, you have done 

that, it has taken you up to what, 80 percent? And at this stage 

of the game, you probably have to find, depending on the time 

limit, some other technology that Mr. Durham may be selling or 

somebody else, to put that in. And of course if you do that, then 

you have got some impact, I would suspect, on your rate payers. 

Mr. MCMANUS. Yes, that is correct. With Gavin as an example, 

if we can achieve, you know, 80 to 85 percent with the coal benefits, to try and put an incremental technology on there to get that 

small difference to get to 90 percent, the sort of cost benefit of that 

is it is going to be more expensive because you are trying to get 

just a small increment. 

The activated carbon technology—and Dr. Durham’s testimony 

shows this—it is a relatively low capital cost and really looks like 

a good approach. But if you have to go to more extensive control 

technologies that are much higher capital costs, that is when the 

costs go up very high, and the impact on the rate payers would be 

significant. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. Let me just follow up with that. 

Dr. Durham, do you want to comment at all on the exchange we 

just heard between Senator Voinovich and Mr. McManus? Anything you want to add or observe? 

Mr. DURHAM. I think what is pointed out is the characteristic 

that all plants are not created equal. And so a lot of the data is 

around a lot of averages so, and as with every average there are 

performers that do a lot better and a lot worse. For example, the 

activated carbon, and what was mentioned in the GAO report, is 

looking at ones that are very low capital costs, relatively low operating costs, and some of those are getting well above 90 percent. 

But there are these other cases. When you get up to a certain 

level, that could be an 80 percent, an 85 percent, and once you hit 

that roof, then the costs really go up to try to get further. We talk 

about variability in costs. We are not talking about 10 or 20 percent. When we come to a difficult situation that is operating at 80 

or 85, it may be $1 million or $2 million a year of activated carbon 

to get to that level. To continue to push that up may take three 

times that amount just to go that much further. 

So, those kinds of examples are why you need to be able to average that plant that was overachieving and getting 95 percent with 

that one that is getting 80 or 85 percent. That averaging does not 

create hot spots, because, as you know, when you are looking at an 

overall 90 percent reduction you cannot have many 80s or 70s in 

there and still maintain 90 much less 0. So, we are really talking 

about chasing very small numbers with very large dollars if you do 

not have that flexibility. 

Senator CARPER. Secretary O’Mara is quite familiar with the 

large coal-fired plant, actually four plants, that we have in the 

southeastern part of Delaware at the Indian River Inlet and has 
158 

been very actively involved with NRG, the utility, to cause them to 

dramatically reduce their emissions in the years ahead. And as it 

turns out it has become a major stakeholder in offshore wind provider, which will hopefully be developed enough for the first windmill farm off the coast of our country in about 2 or 3 years. 

At Indian River we have four plants. Some of them are pretty 

small, but one of them I think is quite large. But if I understand 

the flexibility you are talking about, Dr. Durham, they are all coalfired plants. Hypothetically, if they had to reach a reduction of 90 

percent mercury by 2015, if two of the plants were under 90 percent and two could be over, but if they are all co-located, the deal 

is at the end of the average of the four has to be 90 percent. Is that 

correct? 

Mr. DURHAM. That is correct, or some whatever its average within the plant or larger, but the environmental benefit is the reduction in mercury and whether you have got a few pounds from one 

and few more pounds from another, the environmental benefit of 

the reduction is the same. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Now what if instead of having those plants 

all co-located together in one part of Sussex County they had one 

or two in Sussex County, another north in Kent County, and another one all the way further north in New Castle County. Now, 

in that case, they could not, they would not have flexibility to balance one another off, would they? 

Mr. DURHAM. Well, it depends on how you write the regulation. 

But again, if you are getting up to the 70–80 percent level at every 

one, what you have to do in order to achieve an overall 90, you are 

still only talking about very small differences between those plants. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

If I could, I want to come back to Mr. McManus again, if I may, 

about the question, particularly on SOx targets, may be too far too 

fast. Talk with us, if you will, about the ability under the Acid Rain 

Program to bank allowances. My understanding is that utilities 

have, I think under the Acid Rain Program the cap on SOx is about 

9.3 million tons. Does that sound about right? 

But I understand that utilities have been below this mark for the 

last several years, allowing companies to bank a large number of 

sulfur dioxide allowances. And you know better than we do what 

you all have in the bank. But how might that help you, or help 

AEP and others, to meet this challenge of too far, too fast? 

Mr. MCMANUS. The banking provision is clearly very helpful to 

be able to rely on title IV allowances that are in the bank and have 

not been used to meet these caps. 

The concern we have, and it really kind of goes to the first cap, 

EPA would have until the end of 2011 to establish new allocations 

going forward, and without knowing what those allocations are 

until 1 year before that cap kicks in, it is hard to say whether the 

bank is going to fully cover the needs in that first cap period. 

And what we have seen in the title IV program, in the NOx SIP 

Call and the CAIR Program, is companies tend to develop their 

compliance plans based on the allocations they receive and not assume that they can rely on the overall market to cover their needs 

because of the risk of relying on a market. If the market is not 

there, you do not have controls installed. And so again, with just 
159 

1 year between that allocation deadline when EPA sets the new allocations in the first cap, it creates uncertainty and concern. 

On the NOx side, I think our concern there is maybe more on the 

Western Zone than the Eastern Zone because the NOx SIP Call is 

in place, and the CAIR NOx Program is in place now in the Eastern Zone. We have seen significant reductions. As I indicated, the 

reductions on our system in the last 10 years, it has been 75 percent reduction in our NOx because of the NOx SIP Call and CAIR’s 

annual program. So, we have seen significant reductions. 

We do have some plants in Oklahoma that would be in the Western Zone. If that is a brand new program in 2012 that would require them to put controls on to meet a new NOx cap; that is a very 

short amount of time to allow us to do that. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Thank you. 

Senator Alexander. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Thanks, Tom. These are very helpful conversations. 

Mr. McManus, how many coal plants do you have in AEP? 

Mr. MCMANUS. We have about 20 or so coal plants, the total 

number of coal units is in the 40s. 

Senator ALEXANDER. How many have SOx and NOx controls on 

them now? Roughly. 

Mr. MCMANUS. Probably roughly about a dozen, and they tend 

to be our largest units—— 

Senator ALEXANDER. Big ones? 

Mr. MCMANUS. From 700 megawatt to 1,300 megawatt. So, it 

makes up a significant percentage of our total capacity. 

Senator ALEXANDER. So, typically that is a scrubber and SCR 

both? 

Mr. MCMANUS. In our eastern fleet, scrubber and SCR, because 

we do have the NOx requirements in the east. We do have two 

units in our western fleet that just have scrubbers. 

Senator ALEXANDER. They just have scrubbers. And as I understand what you are saying, and I have heard from others, you are 

saying on some of those coal plants if you put on both the scrubber 

and the SCR, the SOx and NOx controls, you can get a lot of the 

mercury. Does it get into the 80s? Is that what happens? Well, let 

me not put words in your mouth. How much can you get with just 

those two devices? 

Mr. MCMANUS. The data that we have is for our Gavin Plant 

which is in southeastern Ohio, and it showed reductions in the 80 

to 85 percent range. But it was based on short-term emissions 

tests, not on long-term monitoring data. So, we are very encouraged by that level, but we do not have a good sense for what we 

can achieve and maintain from a long-term perspective. 

Senator ALEXANDER. But to reach 90, then, you would have to 

buy some other technology like Mr. Durham’s technology and add 

it to the SCR and scrubber? 

Mr. MCMANUS. Correct. We would have to do something to supplement what we are getting in the coal benefits. 

Senator ALEXANDER. But Mr. Durham, I understand you to be 

saying that—you are sort of arguing against yourself, aren’t you, 

if you argue for an average because if they can get it to 85 without 
160 

your device on some plants, that is what they would do, and then 

they would not buy your product. Is that not right? 

Mr. DURHAM. Well, our best interests are based around keeping 

coal as a viable option for power generation. So, it is in our best 

interests to make this as inexpensive as possible and still achieve 

the goals of reducing emissions. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Yes, and I think our country’s best interest 

is the same, which is to continue to have coal as a low cost big supplier of electricity. So if under our legislation we do not allow you 

to go below, you have to be at 90 percent smokestack by smokestack, so would it be possible to say, to put a floor under that? 

Would it make any sense to say that while you might be able to 

average your smokestacks to 90, but that in no case would any 

smokestack go below a certain level? Mr. Durham, what would you 

think of that? 

Mr. DURHAM. I think any form of flexibility helps. Because, you 

know, for example, on the scrubbers and SCRs, there are units that 

are getting over 90 percent. But if you are stuck at that 80 percent, 

the additional equipment, to give you an example, a new power 

plant that is being built that has to meet a 90 percent because of 

Federal regulation will have not only that SCR and a wet scrubber, 

they will have to add activated carbon injection, they will have to 

add adding another chemical alkaloid to control the SOx, they will 

have to add a wet ESP. And so you are talking about these huge 

incremental changes to get from that 85 to a 90. That is a must 

just to make sure you can get there. 

Senator ALEXANDER. I understand. But you would not want, Mr. 

Durham, but you would not want to let any smokestack go very 

much below 90 because there is some evidence, maybe a lot of evidence, that mercury sort of goes up and comes down, unlike the 

SOx and NOx, which blows away, and so the people who live in the 

area of that coal plant would be exposed to more mercury. 

What would be a reasonable level below 90 that any smokestack 

could—what would be the floor? 

Mr. DURHAM. Well, again, if you are looking at having to average 

90 percent, you can see you cannot get—you know, this is kind of 

like trying to maintain an A average in school and how many 

70s—— 

Senator ALEXANDER. But Mr. McManus has 40 plants, so you 

might have one that is 40 percent and the rest at 90, and the people who live around the one at 40 percent would not be too happy. 

Mr. DURHAM. I think that would be difficult to do. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Mathematically difficult. 

Mr. DURHAM. Mathematically difficult to do. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Mr. McManus, any comment on the averaging from you about the opposing kinds? 

Mr. MCMANUS. I agree with the point that if the target is 90 percent you cannot have many units that are significantly below 90 

percent and meet your average. But to the extent that, in the direction that is given in the bill to EPA as it establishes these rules, 

you can encourage them to provide as much flexibility as possible. 

It certainly would help. 

The Clean Air Mercury Rule had a national trading program for 

mercury, and we still do not understand why that was a concern 
161 

for many people. But does it make sense to do something that is 

on a smaller regional basis that would allow a form of trading or 

averaging a number of sources across a fleet or across a State? 

Those types of things, I think, can only help to meet the target. 

Senator ALEXANDER. I appreciate the comment, Mr. Chairman. 

Just my own thought, I am not in favor of trading mercury, but 

some averaging might be worth our thinking about. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. Laura Haines is sitting behind me, 

on our staff, and reminded me that we do provide under our legislation some flexibility for EPA on this front, and I do not think 

they go in and do it on a boiler by boiler basis. But they are sort 

of interested in the overall site. 

And I use my example of the Indian River Inlet facility where 

they have four plants. And one could be at 80, and the others could 

be at like 93. Would they be in compliance? But your point is well 

taken, and we think that we have invited some flexibility there for 

EPA, and we will look to see if there is some reasonable way to do 

a bit more. 

Mr. DURHAM. Senator Carper, that plant is a good example because it is different ages of plants, equipment configurations, and 

so if you had that flexibility, just the planning process, it would be 

cheaper to get mercury control of some than the others. So, looking 

at each one of those as a separate entity makes that easier. 

Senator CARPER. I want to come back to Secretary O’Mara, if I 

could, and Dr. Rizzo, if you would want to comment on this as well, 

that would be fine. 

We have heard, at least from some northeastern States, that our 

nitrogen oxide targets for the East are not strong enough to help 

States meet new EPA ozone air quality rules. And I would just say, 

if we made some adjustments, made some adjustments to the Seasonal Ozone Program, Secretary O’Mara, do you think that somehow we could address those concerns? 

Mr. O’MARA. Senator Carper, I think that it helps a lot. The 

challenge that Delaware faces is, frankly, if we controlled every 

unit in the States to the highest possible of 100 percent, we are 

still not in our attainment because of the import of emissions. And 

so I think that having seasonal allowances established by EPA 

would help. 

I think there are some challenges with the approach that we 

need to work with EPA through. For example, EPA right now is 

looking at lengthening the ozone season for some States that are 

out of attainment. So, for example, Delaware’s ozone season could 

be from March to October, compared to Massachusetts being from 

April to September. 

And we also need to look at the winter peaks from NOx that 

could result. But I think that clearly it is a step that helps address 

some of the concerns that we have to get into attainment as quickly as possible to bring the benefits of clean air to our residents as 

fast as we possibly can. 

Senator CARPER. Mr. McManus, let me just ask you to kind of 

react to that a little bit. Do you think that it might be possible for 

us to meet a tighter mark for NOx in the East, and again, going 

to this idea of having some seasonal adjustments, adjustments to 

the Seasonal Ozone Program, is that a live option in your view? 
162 

Mr. MCMANUS. Yes, Senator, I think it is an option. The key to 

an issue like that is the timing. We have had, as I have indicated, 

we have put selective catalytic reduction on a lot of our units, our 

biggest units. But we do have a lot of smaller units that do not 

have that technology. We use more combustion controls, low NOx

burners, that type of control, but they do not achieve the level of 

reduction that a SCR does. 

If we want to look at putting additional SCRs on, that is a long 

lead time capital program to do that. So, the timing of meeting an 

entire cap is pretty critical as much as sort of the level of that cap. 

And then the other factor is, we do have a lot of smaller units 

that are of the 1950s vintage. We are looking at a lot of those 

units, and a lot of other companies are as well, in terms of how 

much longer would we continue to run those? Would you invest in 

the pollution control technology, the cost of higher capital scrubbers 

and SCR in those units? Would you make a decision to shut them 

down at some point, convert to natural gas, replace them with natural gas? 

So, the timing of that is important as well in terms of our need 

to have capacity available to meet electric demand in balance, putting controls on, maybe retiring some units, building new units. So, 

timing is critical. But a lower cap, I think, clearly could be 

achieved. 

Senator CARPER. Do you want to comment on that at all, Secretary O’Mara? You do not have to, but if you want to. 

Mr. O’MARA. Well, I tend to agree that a lower cap could be 

achieved. The experience in Delaware has been that it is possible 

to put controls on these units at a fairly rapid pace. And some of 

the choices that have been faced by NRG, for example, that you referenced there, are raising some interesting issues about energy 

supply in the State of Delaware. 

The one example I will use is a conversation we have been having in the State about Unit 3 at the Indian River Power Plant that 

you referenced. 

Senator CARPER. That is the largest of the four, is it not? 

Mr. O’MARA. Right. And they were planning on going ahead with 

all of the air controls, they did not see a major impact from the 

price of the air controls, they were still fairly competitive. They 

also had some interests in water issues at that location, concerns 

about fly ash, concerns about carbon emissions as well. And the 

company has decided that it is much more effective to put their investment into offshore wind and other cleaner sources of power 

than to try to rehabilitate an older unit. 

Now, contrast that with a unit that is 15 years newer than that 

unit where they have decided to put on the emission controls that 

are required similar to what would be required in this bill, and 

that unit is still competitive, providing, you know, cleaner, but also 

cost competitive electricity. 

And so I think that it does make sure that it protects the consumer, but it also encourages investment in innovative areas. But 

it gives people the flexibility to make that choice and ensure that 

we have both clean air and reliable power. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Thank you. 
163 

If I could, for Dr. Rizzo, as a physician, as a leader in our medical community in Delaware, but also here representing the American Lung Association, can I just ask why does the America Lung 

Association support NOx caps? 

Dr. RIZZO. Well, as a non-profit and as a vision of a world without lung disease, anything that will improve pollution—and the 

lower nitric oxide is, the less ozone there is at ground level—will 

improve how people feel on a day to day basis, not only those who 

already have lung disease, but all of us are affected by these in different degrees. And seasonal variations occur because of the heat 

and certainly because of the ozone in the region that we deal with 

in the Northeast. 

But improving NOx and sulfur dioxide, anything to get those 

much, much lower than they are and with more rapid enactment 

of these is what the Lung Association pushes. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thanks very much. 

Senator Voinovich. 

Senator VOINOVICH. These units—how many units do you have, 

coal-fired units? 

Mr. MCMANUS. We have total, around 50, I believe. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Fifty coal-fired units? 

Mr. MCMANUS. Coal-fired units, yes. 

Senator VOINOVICH. OK. And many of them are smaller in terms 

of—what would you say the average megawatts would be from 

them, the smaller ones? 

Mr. MCMANUS. The smaller units tend to be 100- to 250- or 300- 

megawatt units. 

Senator VOINOVICH. If we did something with the technology on 

modular nuclear, those might be some alternatives for those facilities? 

Mr. MCMANUS. We have looked at that; can you put in place a 

technology that can handle the full gas from a number of units on 

one site and get the economy of scale benefit from a cost perspective. So, that is a possible approach that could be used. 

Senator VOINOVICH. OK. One of the things that we talked about 

is that—particularly when we were talking about carbon—is that 

in most of those plants you could make them more efficient. But 

the reason you do not is because, and Dr. Rizzo said, for God’s 

sake, do not bother with New Source Review. So, what happens is 

that the utility decides to kind of keep it where it is at and not try 

to improve the efficiency. In other words, they would be producing 

more electricity, and you are getting the same amount of NOx, SOx, 

mercury and greenhouse gases. 

So, with the New Source Review, your alternative would be on 

these smaller coal-fired plants to shut them down and to move toward natural gas. Is that correct? 

Mr. MCMANUS. If ultimately you decide not to make the investment on pollution control technology, the alternative really is to 

shut them down, and the lead time to build new plants now, the 

lead time for a new natural gas plant is shorter than a coal plant. 

So, there would be a tendency to look at natural gas because you 

can get it in place quicker, again to meet the energy demand that 

we are trying to meet. 
164 

Senator VOINOVICH. Do you think as this legislation been drafted 

that you are going to see a lot more utilities shutting down and 

moving to natural gas? And if you do, what impact would that have 

at all in terms of the costs to the customer? 

Mr. MCMANUS. I think under this legislation, under the existing 

regulatory program that Regina McCarthy talked about this morning, and just looking at the market in general, and then thinking 

ahead to possible CO2 requirements, that we will see more and 

more units being shut down and a move to natural gas. 

One example of that is that Progress Energy late last year announced their plans to retire a number of their smaller, older units 

by the 2017–18 period, in large part due to anticipated environmental cost exposure. So, to me that was sort of an early indicator 

of where we may seem more in the industry go in the future. 

Senator VOINOVICH. So, if it was passed this way, you think 

there would be a tendency to shut them down and move toward 

natural gas? 

Mr. MCMANUS. I think that is a real possibility, yes. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I do not know the difference between the 

cost of producing electricity and natural gas versus coal. Is it about 

the same or a little bit more? What? 

Mr. MCMANUS. Natural gas will tend to be more expensive. The 

key there will be the gas price. And what we have seen in recent 

years is wide fluctuations in natural gas prices. Most recently it 

has come down a little bit, in part because the economy just is not 

that robust now. 

The shale gas resource is going to be pretty critical going forward 

in terms of, you know, can you meet the gas demand and at what 

price. So, that is a big uncertainty. But a potential, clearly a big 

potential going forward, to be able to rely on natural gas at a more 

acceptable cost than what we have seen in the past in gas prices. 

Senator VOINOVICH. And the, in terms of natural gas, tell me, is 

it substantially—I should know this but I do not—in terms of NOx, SOx, mercury, greenhouse gas emissions. Let us just do the three 

Ps. How much, using natural gas, would bring down those pollutants? 

Mr. MCMANUS. Burning natural gas for electricity, you do not 

have any SO2 emissions, you do not have any mercury emissions, 

you do have nitrogen oxide emissions, but they would be lower 

than typically in a coal plant, but that will depend on what nitrogen oxide control technology you have on the plant. 

Senator VOINOVICH. All right. 

So, Mr. Rizzo would be real happy with more gas because of the 

fact that it would take care of the three pollutants that we are 

talking about in this legislation, I would suspect? 

Mr. MCMANUS. I will pass. I will let Dr. Rizzo answer for that. 

Dr. RIZZO. Yes. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, I think that is about it. The only other 

last question would be that, I thought under the CAIR rule, that 

States like Delaware, they took into, for example—I mean, do you 

have an idea of what percentage—you are not meeting the ambient 

air standards right now? And you have done your thing, with getting them to come down and lower their levels of emissions. You 
165 

still have a lot of automobiles and other things. But about what 

percentage of your problem that you have and not meeting your 

ambient air standards comes as a result of transport of ozone? 

Mr. O’MARA. I am just making sure I have the right number. On 

some of these, we have estimated that it could be as high as 90 

percent from out of State sources given the size of the State compared to the generating sources that are close to us. And that is 

even with the improvements to Maryland’s air quality in the past 

few years. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Ninety percent from transport? 

Mr. O’MARA. Ninety percent. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I will be darned. Because I know that I 

thought that under the CAIR rule that we were going to absolve 

you from that. In other words, identify what is coming in, you 

doing your thing, and does that 90 percent include—— 

Mr. O’MARA. That includes some of the transportation sector 

itself on the I–95 corridor. And we have actually tried to explore 

all the tools at our disposal starting in State. But we have filed a 

petition with EPA under 126—— 

Senator VOINOVICH. 126. 

Mr. O’MARA. And the challenge with a 126 is, the question is 

what is the region? And so for us it is really the Philadelphia metro 

region. But many of the emissions are coming from further upwind 

from States further to the west. 

And so far EPA is struggling with this question because the 

original legislation really required them to look at that immediate 

region. But we are asking for—because as Senator Carper said we 

are that kind of tailpipe, across many States, not just the adjacent 

ones. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. I would just say, George, one of the frustrations 

for us is that I can remember times when we literally shut down 

our State’s economy and would still be out of attainment because 

of the transport of the emissions from other places upwind. 

Sometimes I like to close out a hearing. This has been, I think, 

a real good hearing, and I think we had good conversation and a 

productive one, a very constructive conversation. And what I am 

going to do in closing out here is just ask each of our witnesses if 

there is a point that you want to reiterate, make again, or if maybe 

you have sort of a different thought that you want to share with 

us as we close that has been brought out by the interaction that 

we have had with the panelists and those of us who are privileged 

to sit up here. 

Is there anything else that would like for us to keep in mind as 

we walk away from here today, Dr. Rizzo? 

Dr. RIZZO. I think the important thing is to not delay in whatever we can do to improve the situation. I think there were a lot 

of good ideas that have been talked about today, but certainly moving ahead and enacting laws that will help pollution. Every day is 

another life lost or more. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

Dr. Durham. 

Mr. DURHAM. Well, just to reiterate. What we are saying, as 

equipment has been installed and operating, is performance is get-
166 

ting better, costs are going down, we are having to redo our projections on the size of the market because the amounts of activated 

carbon are actually going down from the sites. There are still a 

number of difficult sites, and we are looking forward to trying to 

develop those challenges. But it sometimes helps having you adjust 

the laws of man because the laws of chemistry and physics that we 

are dealing with are not quite as flexible. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Thank you. 

Secretary O’Mara. 

Mr. O’MARA. Thank you, Senator. I think that the message that 

we would like to relay is that, from the Delaware experience, that 

this can be very cost effective. We have seen, you know, the cost 

rate of being roughly about $5,000 a ton for NOx. That is cheaper than about $10,000 a ton to buy a NOx credit on the open market 

for an equivalent amount. 

The technology works, and we are seeing incredible reductions on 

the units that we have. The challenge is that the scattershot State 

by State approach is not always successful. Pennsylvania really 

took—tried to have some very aggressive mercury legislation a few 

years ago that would have had a major benefit to the State of Delaware. That was struck down by the courts, and we continue to have 

pollution into our State. 

So, without a national solution, we will continue to have these 

issues. Not any individual State can solves this challenge alone. 

And we have talked a lot today about the costs. We have not talked 

as much about the benefits. And our analysis shows that for roughly every dollar we spend on pollution control, we are going to save 

$10 or more on health benefit savings. So, the $2 trillion number that you mentioned today, those are 

real dollars, and those are dollars that come out of people’s pockets 

in Delaware and across the country. And those are dollars that 

could be more productively used in other parts of the economy. 

And so when you look at the whole picture, we believe that this 

is an important step forward and we look forward to working with 

you on it. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you so much. 

Mr. McManus. 

Mr. MCMANUS. Thanks, Senator. I think I will step back and 

look at a little broader perspective here. Administrator McCarthy 

this morning mentioned the transition to an energy economy, and 

clearly it is a goal of the current Administration. It is an opportunity, from our perspective, that we see when you look at the electric sector. We see a clear transition occurring that will continue 

this year. 

But it is more than just putting controls on existing power 

plants. It is what new power plants do we want to build, fossil 

fuels versus renewables versus nuclear. It is the smart grid concept, how do we make the way we use energy more efficient, demand side management. There is a lot going on across that. 

All of that is going to take money to implement. In a very struggling economy right now, the challenge I see, really, is the timing 

of all of this. To achieve this transition over the next decade, it is 

a complex equation. And how do we move forward and set time 

lines that make sense, that allow us to be making the best choices. 
167 

You talked about certainty this morning. Certainty would be 

great, but we recognize that you cannot have certainty in everything. But a little better direction in timing that helps us do this 

transition would be extremely helpful, and we would welcome an 

opportunity to work with you to look for ways to implement appropriate timing for a lot of this. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Well thank you for those closing comments. 

In terms of—I certainly learned, I think I knew it before I was 

Governor, but I really learned it as Governor, is that businesses do 

need certainty and predictability. They did then and they do now. 

We also need some certainty in figuring out how to ratchet down 

and rein in the growth of our healthcare costs. We are not competitive with the rest of the world when we spend twice as much as 

the rest of the world for healthcare and do not get better results, 

get worse results. And we have all these people who do not have 

healthcare coverage. You know, we have got to do better than that. 

We need some certainty toward getting us to a better spot there 

as well. 

Dr. Durham mentioned certainty for him and his company going 

to the capital markets to try to raise money for another facility 

that they want to build. If we do not do anything, if we still end 

up battling it out in court with EPA and the CAIR rules and stuff 

like that, that is not the kind of certainty that he needs. And God 

knows what it is like following in Secretary O’Mara’s shoes, trying 

to deal with all of this. 

So, I am by nature an optimistic person. And I am leaving here 

today optimistic that we are on the right track here, that we are 

on the right track here. And I think that we have folks that are 

working in a spirit of cooperation. We know that we are in this together. And we know that we can do better. And we have got to 

do better. 

I do not want to spend another 12 years in the wilderness, in and 

out of court, trying to figure out what regulations are going to be 

in effect and what are not, or are we ever going to legislate around 

here. I want us to legislate. 

And in a season here in Washington where there is, frankly, not 

a lot of work across the aisle, unfortunately, I hope we can provide 

a model for how we can still do that, reach across the aisle, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, environmental community, medical community, non-profits, our utility sector, and we can still figure out how to get this done. And we need to. That is why the people in this country sent us here. And we are going to do our dead 

level best to do that. 

I look forward to talking with Senator Boxer. I appreciate her 

very much letting me chair this hearing today. She has been very 

encouraging in her comments to me as to the way forward on this 

legislation. So, we are going to take it from here. 

That having been said, it is almost lunchtime. We thank you all 

for spending so much time with us. Some of our colleagues who 

were not here, and some of those who were here, will want to submit some questions for the record. They have 2 weeks to do that. 

And I would just ask that, as you receive those questions, please 

do your best to respond to us promptly and fully. 
168 

Thank you again, and with that, this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:27 p.m. the Committee was adjourned.] 

[An additional statement submitted for the record follows:] 

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. INHOFE, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

Chairman Carper, thank you for holding this hearing today to discuss S. 2995, 

‘‘The Clean Air Act Amendments of 2010,’’ which you introduced along with Senator 

Alexander and others. On the day this legislation was introduced, Senator Voinovich 

and I released a statement extending a hand of cooperation in passing multi-pollutant legislation. As we said, ‘‘The goal of combining greater regulatory certainty 

under the Clean Air Act with significant advances in public health and the environment is a worthy and attainable one. We stand together today to begin a dialogue 

aimed at achieving that goal.’’ 

Today I repeat that pledge, and I’m sure Senator Voinovich will do the same. I 

hope that you, Senator Carper, as well as Senator Alexander and others, will join 

us in trying to reach agreement on this important issue. 

There’s a good deal of history behind legislative efforts to reduce sulfur dioxides, 

nitrogen oxides and mercury. I won’t belabor that history, but I will note that several of us, including Senator Carper, made a good faith effort to reach bipartisan 

agreement on the Clear Skies bill in 2005. Ultimately that didn’t happen, and instead we settled for a regulatory approach to reduce emissions. But without explicit 

authorization from Congress, the regulatory program, known as the Clean Air Interstate Rule, or CAIR, was struck down by the D.C. Circuit because EPA lacked the 

necessary legal authority under the Clean Air Act. 

So where do we stand? We have emissions control projects on hold and a depressed allowance trading market. Without a new law from Congress, the ability to 

secure additional emissions reductions from power plants over the next decade remains unclear. Moreover, EPA is preparing a new emissions rule to answer the D.C. 

Circuit’s CAIR decision, but again, without specific legal authorization from Congress, just what EPA can propose in light of that decision is highly uncertain. 

We have a heavy burden on our shoulders to get this done. Yet I believe we can 

provide EPA with the legal authority it needs to get CAIR up and running again. 

At the same time, we can find common ground and pass a bipartisan 3-P bill. Now 

this won’t be easy; Senator Voinovich and I have several concerns about S. 2995. 

I would say my leading concern is that the bill superimposes fairly strict emissions 

reductions over a short timeframe on top of several impending EPA regulations facing power plants. In my view, we should require significant emission reductions 

from power plants, but we also should provide flexibility for how those plants meet 

those targets. 

So again, I say to my colleagues, let’s work together on achieving the long sought 

goal of passing 3-P legislation. This could be a significant milestone that would 

produce real health benefits as well as ensure affordable, reliable electricity to consumers. 

Thank you. 

Æ