Senate seeks legislation to reduce unsafe mercury pollution

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing to discuss various pieces of legislation pertaining to the proliferation of mercury in the environment and in exports. Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) could not be present, so Sen. Tom Carper conducted the hearing in her place. Carper said that “one in 17 women of childbearing age have mercury in their blood at levels that could pose a risk to their unborn children,” emphasizing that these groups are most at risk for health threats.

The senators discussed the merits of various mercury legislation including the Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR), which Carper said was “flawed” and “did not go far enough to protect the health of America’s vulnerable populations.” He advocated instead the Mercury Emissions Control Act, which “would require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to issue a new, stronger rule to control mercury emissions from power plants, as required by the Clean Air Act.”

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) said that no matter what the costs of implementing measures to decrease mercury pollution, the government should have laws “as strong as we can take” to do so because of the potential threat to human health in both adults and infants.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said that “as long as there have been Americans, there have been dads who took their sons fishing” and that “we are in a situation now where that’s not really feasible any longer” because of mercury pollution in fish that makes it unsafe to eat. He called this a “thievery” of the American experience, and said that he was frustrated to see an EPA that “doesn’t take its duties seriously.”