Utility MACT signed--what now?

Des Plaines, IL

Ironically, two days after the EPA approved its Utility MACT rule--which is expected to be unveiled tomorrow--a transformer exploded near Candlestick Park shortly before the kickoff of the San Francisco 49ers-Pittsburgh Steelers game. It knocked the lights out for a few minutes and a second blackout occurred during the matchup.

Utility MACT did not have anything to do with the explosion, but the new rule with a laudable goal--designed to limit mercury emissions--will likely lead to rolling blackouts in areas dependent upon coal-fired power plants for electricity. Consumers will be getting less but paying more--utilities will pass their costs to comply with Utility MACT to businesses, homeowners, and apartment dwellers.

Power plants will close, maybe as many as 68 of them. Those plants generate electricity for 22 million households.

The atmosphere will be cleaner because of Utility MACT, but mostly because of soot emissions stipulations that are covered by the Clean Air Act anyway.

We'll learn more tomorrow about what is to come, but like receiving a medical diagnosis for an obscure disease where the symptoms appear later, we may not appreciate the gravity of what we are facing.

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