Charles Duhigg Quotes

Mercury pollution from power plants is a national problem that requires a national response.

Prediction is a mug's game, but taking the side of water polluters has not been a winning political strategy for 50 years. Presidents Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II all undertook to weaken water regulations in the name of economic growth. They left office; the regulations remained.

The U.S. limits mercury, arsenic, and soot from power plants. Yet, astonishingly, there are no national limits on how much carbon pollution these plants can dump into our atmosphere.

To deal with local pollution, China has put on the agenda the capping of coal, which has long been a sensitive issue.

We can be thankful President Barack Obama is taking aim at one of the prime causes of climate change and extreme weather: air pollution. The EPA's carbon pollution standards are the most significant step forward our country has ever taken to protect our health by addressing climate change.

I will end the lawlessness that's destroying our environment. I will take polluters to court, not to lunch.

The legal fight over climate change begins in the United States with the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977. Under the Act, the E.P.A. is required to publish a list of 'stationary sources' of air pollution, of which the most important are power plants.

There are issues the EPA should be dealing with. When I talk about the EPA and its role with the states, it's not an abolitionist view, that we don't need that agency. It's that the agency should act within the outlines established by Congress.

As a former EPA administrator under a Republican president, I recognize that it is easy to hate regulations in general. After all, regulatory action causes people to spend money or change behavior, often to solve problems they do not believe exist.

The EPA has performed a very important role for us all.

I hope the EPA will listen to the many votes over the years in Congress opposing cap-and-trade and rescind that proposed rule.

Climate change is not an excuse for the EPA to ignore the bounds of law and issue illegal regulations that will cost jobs, shutter industries, and have little to no positive impact on the environment.

It should be noted that the EPA's banning of methanol is categorically absurd from the point of view of environmental protection.

Let's shut down the EPA.

Today, about 40 percent of America's carbon pollution comes from our power plants. There are no federal limits to the amount those plants can pump into the air. None. We limit the amount of toxic chemicals like mercury, and sulfur, and arsenic in our air and water, but power plants can dump as much carbon pollution into our atmosphere as they want. It's not smart, it's not right, it's not safe, and I determined it needs to stop.

I spend a year at the Hoover Institute at Stanford, researching market approaches to air pollution control.

Regulations about environments are going to get tougher and tougher.

Back when the EPA proposed phasing out ozone-depleting CFCs, the chemical industry howled that refrigerators would fail in America's supermarkets, hospitals and schools.

We do have serious energy needs for the country, we are aware that natural gas is especially in demand because of its air quality benefits: 90 percent of new power plants have been natural gas-powered.

I will use my position as chairman emeritus on the Energy and Commerce Committee to try to bring some common sense to EPA regulations.

We need responsible regulations, not regulations that have gone wild. For example, the EPA has a rule that is going to be implemented Jan. 1, 2012, where they're going to begin to regulate dust. That's right, dust. It's called PM 2.5. That is focusing on the wrong thing.

Many environmental advocates argue that agricultural pollution will be reduced only through stronger federal laws.

I don't need a strong EPA. I don't need to fund a lot of money there.

The waste from power plants is essentially what is left over when you burn coal. And as we all know, coal is a relatively dirty mineral.

I think people really understand that clean air and clean water and not having factories dumping their emissions into the atmosphere and into the rivers and into the sea has been a very good thing for America. EPA stands watch for very important principles that go all the way back to Teddy Roosevelt.