Reducing Harmful Mercury

Mercury is a potent neuro-toxin that is particularly harmful to children and pregnant women. When mercury enters the environment, it takes on a highly toxic organic form known as methylmercury. Methylmercury is almost completely absorbed into the blood and affects the senses, the human brain, spinal cord, kidneys, and liver. Children of women with unsafe levels of mercury in their bloodstream are at an elevated risk of birth defects, including mental retardation and problems with motor skills. An estimated 600,000-plus American children are born each year with unsafe levels of mercury in their blood.

Today we are engaged in a debate over mercury emissions from power plants. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released issued a rule regulating mercury pollution from power plants. I am opposed to this rule because it will allow coal-fired power plants to continue to emit an unsafe level of mercury into the atmosphere.

Rather than issuing a rule that holds up the intent of the Clean Air Act, the EPA chose to issue a rule that allows coal plants to generate three times more mercury pollution over the next fifty years. Coal-burning power plants are the largest single source of mercury in the United States; it is unconscionable that the EPA would weaken the mercury emissions regulations of these plants. This policy is particularly harmful to Maine because the wind patterns bring mercury emissions from power plants in the Midwest to pollute our environment.

I am committed to overturning the EPA rule, so our citizens, wildlife, and waterways can be protected from harmful mercury contamination. The current rule falls short of the mercury emissions provisions outlined in the Clean Air Act law. Further, the EPA Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office have investigated the rule and have already issued reports citing problems with the rule and the rule-making process.

The EPA rule actually removes mercury pollution from the list of toxic pollutants from power plants, which are regulated under the Clean Air Act. This section requires maximum emissions controls for the most dangerous pollutants. Instead, EPA is implementing a much more lenient set of regulations that are inadequate to protect human health. The rule sets an initial cap on mercury emissions at 38 tons, a level that does not need to be reached until 2010, with a second phase cap of 15 tons by 2018. This represents a much smaller decrease than the 5 tons by 2009 – a 90% reduction in emissions – called for in the "Clean Power Act" that I authored with Senators Jeffords and Lieberman. The technology is available now to reduce emissions by 85-90%; there is no reason why should we have to wait until 2018 to achieve much weaker reductions nationwide.

Following the release of this rule, Senator Joe Lieberman and I met with Acting EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson to express my concerns over the rule's lax controls. I reiterated my concerns in letters to the EPA, the Vice President, and the President.

Since it does not appear that the EPA will, on its own accord, correct this flawed rule, I am pursuing legislative remedies to overturn it. I signed a Joint Resolution of Disapproval, a means by which Congress can overturn agency regulations using an expedited process. In addition, I signed a discharge petition, which will guarantee a debate by the full Senate on the resolution. I was the first Republican to sign both of these measures, and my signature was the 30th and final signature required to force the Senate to schedule a recorded vote on this issue.

Mercury is a deadly toxin and should be treated as such. The EPA's rule is inadequate to address this serious problem, and it needs to be overturned and replaced with a rule that is truly protective of human health and the environment. ###