Browner bemoans ‘writ large’ hostility toward EPA

Former White House energy and climate adviser Carol Browner on Tuesday lamented GOP-led attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency, arguing they’re at odds with the historical success of agency protections.

“There does seem to be, among some, a lot of hostility toward EPA writ large, just toward the whole idea that we are going to set public health standards and we are going to require companies to meet them,” said Browner, who left the White House earlier this year and is now a senior fellow with the liberal Center for American Progress (CAP).

“And it is just really unfortunate, because if you look at the history of EPA standards – air, water, toxics, whatever – it shows that you are able to do it in a cost-effective manner and that you actually can create jobs and that you can provide important public health benefits,” she added.

Browner headed EPA in the Clinton administration. She spoke with reporters after a CAP forum with a top EPA official and others who defended and lauded upcoming rules to cut mercury toxic emissions from power plants.

The rules are under attack from Republicans, some Democrats, and coal-burning utilities including American Electric Power, which is seeking to delay the standards.

EPA is working on the rules at a time when House Republicans are seeking to delay or soften a number of other EPA policies as well, including greenhouse gas regulations.

EPA Deputy Administrator Bob Perciasepe said the power plant rule – which is slated to be finalized in November – is achievable, and parried industry attacks on the utility air toxics proposal, which is aimed at curbing mercury, arsenic, chromium and other substances.

He noted that power companies will have several years to comply – up to four – and criticized what he called “extreme assumptions” in some industry analyses.

But Perciasepe also vowed to sit down with any company and “work through their implementation challenges.”

Browner also noted that power companies have been on notice for a decade that they would eventually be forced to cut mercury emissions, and said that companies that have made investments to cut toxics in anticipation of the rules are hurt by delays.

“There is a fairness issue embedded in all of this, which is in a competitive market ... when one set of companies make the investments and sell their product and recoup the cost of making those investments, to force them to continue to have to compete with people who haven’t made similar investments is somewhat unfair,” Browner said.

A top official with Calpine Corp., a major power producer, appeared on the panel and defended the upcoming rules.

The rule proposed in March, according to EPA, would prevent as many as 17,000 premature deaths and 11,000 heart attacks a year, among other health benefits.

The agency estimates that annual costs of the rule would be $11 billion, but projects that they will be outweighed several times over by the value of the health benefits.