Obama-Era Mercury Rules

On Friday February 17, 2023, The Biden administration finalized a decision to reestablish Obama-era rules that requires coal and oil-fired power plants to reduce toxic pollutants. Many of which including mercury and acid gas, that come out of their smokestacks. These rules have been extremely effective in the past and since Obama’s presidency in 2012 when these rules were passed, it is estimated that mercury emissions from power plants were brought down by 86% by 2017, while acid gas emissions were reduced by 96%. This major decrease is quite beneficial towards mitigating Global Warming through reducing the amount of emissions released into the atmosphere, which are the number one contributor towards Global Warming and climate change’s rise. These rules were helpful towards mitigating Global Warming but when Donald Trump became president, he withdrew the legal justification for an Obama-era rules and said that the cost of compliance far outweighed the public health benefits. Although he may believe this which eventually led to the cancelation of the Obama-Era Mercury rules, it was seen that these rules had extremely high benefits. So, during this time of cancelation, Global Warming continued to increase and exacerbate. However, Biden’s administration recently re-implemented these rules, therefore forcing coal-fired power plants to cut their mercury emissions and thus help Global Warming and climate change.