Cuccinelli Sounds Reasonable While Promoting Anti-EPA Talking Points

A lot of people have asked me how Ken Cuccinelli was able to repeatedly get elected in a very moderate district in Northern Virginia while he was in the state senate. The answer to that is very simple: he's a good politician who's often able to take crazy ideas and make them sound like he's preaching a mainstream concept. A prime example of this came when he was on the Kojo Nnamdi show and claimed that the EPA's new mercury emissions guidelines for coal-fired plants have affected poor people the most. His reasoning is that people who depend on coal for power, including the residents of Southside Virginia, have supposedly seen an increase in electricity costs as a result of the regulations.

I have to admit that when I heard the show, I even thought he might be getting at something. I mean, he even started his statement by talking about how he's supposedly working with the EPA on some issues. So while I quickly realized that the crutch of his argument was right out of the right wing talking points (ie government regulation is bad and hurts people, doubly so when it involves protecting the environment), I got in touch with some folks I know who are extremely knowledgeable about environmental/energy issues to see if Cuccinelli was making any sense.

The answer I quickly got back was a resounding no. One person even forwarded me a letter sent to the White House from a group of health scientists. The letter highlighted how mercury was extremely dangerous and had a very negative impact on the health of people exposed to it. Their conclusion was that “exposure to mercury in any form places a heavy burden on the biochemical machinery within cells of all living organisms.” In other words, mercury is something that needs to be regulated so that people living in the areas surrounding coal-fire plants can lead healthy lives.

When I asked how these environmental activists would counter Cuccinelli's argument about the cost of the mercury regulations, it was pretty unanimous that the regulations would be costly to implement -- there was no way to really get around that. But the plain and simple fact of the matter was that there would be economic and health benefits from the new regulations that would more than make up for the initial costs.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said it will cost power companies $10 billion to comply with the new rules. But she said the health and other benefits would be worth $100 billion a year — including up to $2.6 billion a year in New Jersey alone, due to fewer sick days, premature deaths, heart attacks and hospitalizations for asthma.

Mercury that spews into the air can travel hundreds of miles, entering lakes and rivers where it accumulates in fish. Humans who eat the fish can develop neurological disorders, including attention deficit disorder and learning disabilities in children. Pregnant women can pass the mercury on to the fetus, which can develop mental retardation.

In other words, Cuccinelli was completely off base here. Not only do the new regulations allow people to live healthier lives, but they would actually have some economic benefits as well. The problem is, a lot of people listening probably heard Cuccinelli and just assumed he was speaking the truth -- he did sound reasonable, after all. Even those who had some doubts probably weren't able to simply send off a couple emails to folks who are knowledgeable about the topic like I did. And that, my friends, is one of the main reasons why Cuccinelli has been able to continuously get elected despite promoting policies that go against the best interests of the people he represents.

For those of you who are interested, here's the video of Cuccinelli discussing the EPA regulations.