Mining bitcoin is claimed to be a nation security concern that justifies breaking pollution law
Last March, Trump announced that polluting businesses could get a 2-year exemption to Clean Air Act regulations. The exemption could be requested by email. Thousands of exemptions were applied for, and apparently nearly all were granted with no science review impacts on public health or the environment. Lawsuits challenging the legality of the exemptions are pending. Science was not any part of the pollution waiver program.
To implement this gutting of the law, Trump had the EPA set up an email address where companies just had to send an email to make their waiver request. An EPA spokesman said that EPA played no role in the determinations set out in the statute and specifically vested in the President. All waiver requests were forwarded to the White House from the EPA.
Trump claims his waivers are legal based on on Section 112(i)(4) of the Clean Air Act. That law permits the President to exempt stationary pollution sources from compliance for up to two years if two conditions are met: (1) the technology needed to comply is unavailable, and (2) granting the exemption serves national security interests. This provision was nvere used by any president in its 55-year history.
The lawsuits argue that Trump’s justification is baseless because pollution controls were already in use at various facilities. That directly contradicts claims that the technology is unavailable. Some of the utilities that got waivers publicly stated they were already implementing the pollution controls required by existing regulations. That further undercut Trump’s claim that necessary technologies don’t exist.
In its waiver application, one company that burns coal waste claimed that a significant portion of the electricity it generates is used to mine bitcoin. Keeping the cost of environmental compliance low was claimed to be important for the security of the United States. Needless to say, bitcoin mining is not related to national security. Trump granted the waiver anyway.
Also, a medical sterilizer company Sterigenics, asked for a waiver for nine facilities to continue emitting the carcinogenic gas ethylene oxide. The facilities include ones near Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, Charlotte and Atlanta. More than 45,000 people, most of them not white, live within a mile of these facilities, according to federal data. Trump granted that waiver too.
What about the flow of wealth & power?
As with essentially all Trump/MAGA policies, wealth and power is affected. In this case, wiping out pollution regulations strips protections from the public interest. That opens the way for wealth and power to flow to the deregulated businesses. The cost and damage to public health and the environment are socialized for taxpayers to bear. Wealth and power flow from us to the deregulated special interests. By now it is clear that transfer of wealth and power from us to special interests is normal and routine for MAGA policy. It can be called trickle-up economics.
When industries are significantly deregulated, most of the benefits flow to the people who control where the benefits go. No surprise there. At most, the public and public interest rarely sees much benefit. Usually net damage is what the public gets. Deregulation doesn’t help us, but it sure does make the elites happy, and richer. Link, link, link
For what it’s worth, contrary to MAGA demagoguery on the point, the Clean Air Act generates approximately $30 in economic benefits for every $1 spent on compliance. That’s a 30:1 return on investment. EPA’s comprehensive analysis found that in 2020 alone, Clean Air Act Amendments prevented over 230,000 premature deaths, with about 85% of economic benefits attributable to reduced mortality from particulate matter. Through 2020, these regulations were projected to deliver more than $2 trillion in health savings at a compliance cost of $65 billion. Link, link
Because of the high level of public benefit from pollution laws, Trump ordered the EPA to stop calculating health-related monetary benefits when setting pollution limits. Now only economic costs to industry are considered. This tactic conveniently ignores high public benefit-cost ratios. Link, link
Q: Is Trump and MAGA’s pro-pollution deregulation good for the public interest, or does it mostly just transfer wealth and power from us to the few people in power at our expense?
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