AEP favors cap-and-trade system for mercury

摘要

The word "mercury" has always symbolized speed and quickness. Recently, however, AEP and the nation's other electric utilities have been playing a waiting game regarding rules for mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. By March 15, 2005, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency will announce long-awaited new regulations requiring substantial reductions in mercury emissions from such plants. The EPA will be choosing between two vastly different approaches: a cap-and-trade program and a Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) plan. AEP strongly favors the cap-and-trade approach because it would allow the company to make the required reductions in mercury emissions in what it considers to be a flexible and cost-effective manner. Company officials would prefer to see the EPA set a national cap on mercury emissions and establish a system for trading allowances, as is now being done very successfully for SO_2 and NO_x emissions.