Unprecedented Events

In October 1991, four separate weather systems gathered off the coast of New England: Hurricane Grace from the Atlantic, a cold front from New England, a high pressure system over southeastern Canada, and a low pressure system in the Maritimes. When they converged, they created a storm as strong as any in recorded history, with winds of 120 miles per hour and waves the height of 10-story buildings. The interaction of the weather systems was so rare and its effects so cataclysmic, meteorologists dubbed the results "the perfect storm." No one caught in the middle of such a phenomenon could survive.

For an Administration hostile to environmental protection, suspicious of regulation in virtually any form, and devoted to the short-term interests of the energy and chemical industries, the circumstances surrounding its decisions in December 2003 to forego meaningful controls on mercury air emissions from power plants and mercury cell chlor-alkali facilities amounted to the regulatory equivalent of the perfect storm.