WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-Jeffords: Mercury Rule Illegal
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Washington, D.C. - September 13, 2005
The U.S. Senate has voted to uphold new regulations on mercury emissions that critics say will roll-back environmental protection. The so-called cap-and-trade system sets a nationwide cap on power plant emissions, but allows individual plants to exceed the limits if they buy pollution credits from plants that are under the limits.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, says the rules allow too much dangerous pollution into the air.
Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vermont, says the rules actually violate the Clean Air Act: "After careful review, I have concluded that there was such a failure that this was an intentional an illegal attempt to circumvent the law and that it was designed to benefit big energy companies at the expense of the public health."
But Senators Jeffords and Leahy were on the losing end of this battle. The Senate voted 51-to-47 to leave the new mercury rules in place.
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