Coal-related mercury pollution from power plants such as the one pictured here in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, has so contaminated the state’s landscape that pregnant women are advised to limit local fish consumption to one meal per week.
Credit: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty

Americans have one day left to tell the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to preserve life-saving pollution standards.

Last year, the Trump administration proposed a plan to move forward with dismantling safeguards on dangerous mercury and toxic pollution from power plants. Doing so would boost levels of mercury, soot and other hazardous pollution into our nation’s air, water, food and communities. These standards — the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) — were developed in consultation with medical and public health experts in order to keep Americans healthy and safe.

As a doctor in Pennsylvania, I have seen just how important these standards are. Children are especially vulnerable to mercury’s harmful effects on the brain before birth and during early childhood. Coal-related mercury pollution has so contaminated Pennsylvania’s landscape that the state’s Fish and Boat Commission […]