Mitchell Hescox and EEN are co-opting pro-life language in their battle to advance environmentalist agenda. (Photo credit: Hiren.info)
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Claiming to speak for a “growing” number of evangelicals who are now “consistently pro-life,” Reverend Mitchell Hescox, president of the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN), testified before a Congressional committee for new standards on oil and coal power plants potentially costing over $9 billion annually.
Expanding the traditional meaning of “pro-life,” Hescox claimed that heavy regulation on coal burning plants is a “pro-life” issue “central to the Evangelical Environmental Network’s ministry of creation care, because for us creation care is a matter of life.” He testified before to the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Energy and Power.
“Creation care,” better known as environmentalism, is EEN’s focus. By framing the proposed regulation from the Obama Administration as a sanctity of life matter, however, EEN attempts to garner the attention and support of Christians, especially evangelicals, who want to defend the unborn. Over the last year, EEN has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on an ad campaign portraying increased federal regulation of power plants as “pro-life.” One EEN ad for the regulations portrays a pastor declaring: “I expect members of Congress to protect the unborn.”
The February 8 hearing concerned the projected costs and benefits of the proposed “Utility Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MACT)” rule, which would set new pollutant emissions limit standards for coal and oil-fired power plants that emit mercury, affecting fresh water sources. This contamination can theoretically harm brain development and cause lower IQs in unborn and nursing infants if mothers consume unsafe quantities of mercury-tainted fish.
This “rule has been characterized as the most expensive rule ever imposed by the agency on the power sector,” according to the background briefing by Congressional staff. Because the projected annual compliance costs of the requirements on coal-fired generation are about $9 billion, significant harms and benefits are necessary to justify the passage of MACT. Opponents of the new rule assert the potential harms posed by mercury emissions are low and not life-threatening.
Hescox reported that his own EEN is backed by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in supporting a federal mercury standard that would “protect our unborn children and infants across the country.” He emphasized: “We are united to protect life, a sacred gift from God, both before and after birth.”
To resist diluting the meaning of “pro-life,” pro-life leaders released a joint letter before the hearings saying: “The life in pro-life denotes not quality of life but life itself. The term denotes opposition to a procedure that intentionally results in dead babies … most environmental causes promoted as pro-life involve little threat to human life itself, and no intent to kill anyone.” This assessment was reiterated in the hearing by toxicologist Julie Goodman, who reported: “This rule will have a negligible effect on public health.” Signers included officials with Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, and the Institute on Religion and Democracy. The letter was organized by the Cornwall Alliance.
During the congressional hearing’s questioning time, Congressman John Shimkus (R – IL) pointed out the clear distinction between environmental causes and true pro-life matters. “Truly pro-life issues are issues of life and death,” he said, and “we in the pro-life community take great offense when an evangelical movement tries to usurp the meaning of ‘pro-life’” Despite insisting that his organization’s support for MACT was motivated by a “complete” pro-life agenda, when Shimkus asked if EEN had supported “any of the 13 pieces of legislation promoted by the pro-life community in this Congress,” Hescox answered “no.”
“You are masquerading for an environmental cause which I reject and which many in the pro-life community [reject],” Shimkus told Hescox. The EEN chief countered that there is “a tremendous growing movement of evangelicals and Roman Catholics across this country who support us, who understand that being pro-life is totally pro-life, environmental health, anti-poverty, and all those issues.”
Congressman Pete Olson (R – TX) pointed out that current blood mercury levels have been far below the EPA levels for years now, indicating that the regulation was probably motivated by a more explicitly environmental agenda to reduce pollution. Toxicologist, Julie Goodman further testified: “The vast majority of the benefits … are not from mercury reductions, but rather from highly imprecise estimates of mortality reductions from decreasing emissions of fine particulate matter,” a form of pollution. Ultimately, five of the seven panelists agreed that considering the evidence, MACT is not really about health concerns or protecting life, but in fact about an environmentalist agenda. Hescox was one of two panelists who did not admit this motivation behind the regulation.
MACT’s critics say it would decrease quality of life by increasing electricity costs for American families by as much as $84 a year. Despite the costs, Hescox insisted: “It is worth $84.00 per year to protect our children.” The statement from pro-life leaders suggested that environmentalists should advocate their policies “honestly and above-board” without promoting “those causes under the pro-life banner.”
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