The media frenzy and political theatre associated with the Congressional Palm Sunday sessions have overshadowed news that EPA may have cooked the books, so to speak, when estimating benefits of mercury emission levels. EPA released a new rule last week, stating that anything more restrictive was not justified based on cost-benefit analysis. What they didn't say was that they ignored a Harvard study that EPA commisioned and paid for and that was "co-authored by an EPA scientist and peer-reviewed by two other EPA scientists had reached the opposite conclusion."

According to the Washiington Post

That analysis estimated health benefits 100 times as great as the EPA did, but top agency officials ordered the finding stripped from public documents, said a staff member who helped develop the rule. Acknowledging the Harvard study would have forced the agency to consider more stringent controls, said environmentalists and the study's author...

Asked about the Harvard analysis, Al McGartland, director of the EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics, said it was submitted too late to be factored into the agency's calculations. He added that crucial elements of the analysis were flawed.

Interviews and documents, however, show that the EPA received the study results by the Jan. 3 deadline, and that officials had been briefed about its methodology as early as last August. EPA officials referred to some aspects of the Harvard study in a briefing for The Washington Post on Feb. 2.

The Philadelphia Inquirer has called on Pennsylvania to follow New Jersey's lead and impose higher state standards to prevent being "awash in the toxic metal."

Washington economists are betting that because of economies of scale, the worst polluters - including several in Pennsylvania - will rush to clean up their mess and profit from selling credits to plants in other states. History suggests otherwise. That makes this market-based system a gamble, especially for the Northeast, where mercury pollution concentrates. Pennsylvania ranks third nationally in power-plant mercury emissions and suffers from pollution drifting east from Ohio, Illinois and Indiana. New Jersey imports pollution from all four states.

More from Associated Press

edited to add state-specific information