What's this one called - the Healthy Babies Act?

The Washington Post reports today that the EPA lied in its cap-and-trade proposal to regulate mercury emissions.

Why do we care about this? Simply put, the current levels of mercury cause brain damage in children and fetuses.

Cap-and-trade is essentially the practice where (a) emissions limits are set; (b) By virtue of the particular industry they're in, some polluters naturally go way over that limit, and some polluters come in way under it; (c) The polluters that go way over the limit are allowed to purchase the unused pollution allowances from the polluters that are way under the limit.

The other proposal on the table is a simple cap on emissions that would be applied across the board.

The Bush Administration argues that providing these financial incentives will be a more efficient, and in the long term, more effective way to reduce Mercury emissions - avoiding costly lawsuits and immediate re-tooling, and allowing industries to gradually phase in new low-emission plants.

Now, it turns out their math was a bit... err... fuzzy. Go figure.

So, from where did the details of this fabulous cap-and-trade program spring, you ask? Why, they were taken verbatim from "suggestions" by lawyers representing the polluting companies. The linked article only mentions one of the companies by name - Cinergy Inc. According to OpenSecrets.org, Cinergy is (surprise, surprise) a HUGE Republican contributor, with the CEO personally ponying up $59,058 to Republican candidates.