U.S. Senator Susan Collins has introduced legislation to create a comprehensive new program to measure mercury levels across the United States. The bipartisan "Comprehensive National Mercury Monitoring Act" is cosponsored by Senator Tom Carper (D-DE).
"This legislation would build on existing environmental monitoring efforts to create a comprehensive nationwide mercury monitoring network to provide sound mercury measurements that EPA sorely needs," said Senator Collins.
Through this program, mercury monitoring sites would be established across the nation to measure mercury levels in the air, rain, soil, lakes and streams, wildlife and the fish that people eat.
"Mercury is one of the most persistent and dangerous pollutants that threatens our health and environment today. This powerful toxin affects the senses, the brain, spinal cord, kidneys and liver. It poses significant risks to children and pregnant women, causing an elevated risk of birth defects and problems with motor skills. It is estimated that approximately 410,000 children born in the U.S. each year are exposed to levels of mercury in the womb that are high enough to impair neurological development. While mercury exposure has gone down as mercury emissions in the United States have declined, levels remain unacceptably high," said Senator Collins, who has made reducing the mercury threat to our people and wildlife one of her priorities in the Senate. In 2002, the Senate unanimously passed her legislation to ban the sale of mercury fever thermometers, the source of some 17 tons of mercury in solid waste every year.
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