By committing electric utilities to meaningful, transparent emission reduction targets across the board and promoting efficiency and renewable energy, these bills will help the nation cost-effectively meet its growing energy needs without damaging human health or destroying the natural environment. The electric power industry is among the nation's largest sources of carbon dioxide, mercury, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxide four pollutants that are major factors in some of the greatest environmental threats of our time, including acid rain and global climate change. The electricity sector accounts for 40 percent of the nation's emissions of carbon dioxide and is therefore a major factor in our contribution to global climate change. Left unchecked, climate change will undermine efforts to conserve habitat and protect vulnerable species. We cannot afford to delay action, and regulating carbon dioxide in the electricity sector is an important step.
Power plants are also the largest remaining source of mercury emissions to the air.
Once in the air, mercury is picked up by rain and snow and ends up in our lakes, streams and coastal waters, poisoning fish and threatening the people and wildlife that depend on them for food. Forty states have issued fish consumption advisories due to mercury contamination. Mercury in the rain poisons lakes, streams, rivers, and any creature that relies on them including people. New scientific evidence shows that 380,000 children are born each year to women who have unsafe levels of mercury in their blood. These children are at risk of diminished mental development and coal-burning power plants are the primary source of the problem.