"Tracking And Reducing Harmful Mercury"
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.
Each new scientific study seems to find higher levels of mercury in more ecosystems and in more species than we had previously thought, even in the songbirds that live in New England's forests. As of 2008, every state in the country has issued fish consumption advisories due to mercury contamination. Here in Maine, every freshwater lake, river, and stream in our beautiful state is subject to a mercury advisory, warning pregnant women and young children to limit their consumption of fish caught in these waters. While this advisory is bad enough for the many anglers who love to fish Maine waters, it is especially difficult for indigenous peoples like those of the Penobscot Indian Nation for whom subsistence fishing is an important part of their culture. In addition, mercury levels in Maine fish, loons, and eagles are among the highest in North America.
Reducing this threat to our people and our wildlife is one of my priorities. In 2002, the Senate unanimously passed my legislation to ban the sale of mercury fever thermometers, the source of some 17 tons of mercury in solid waste every year.
Today, scientists must rely on limited information in order to better understand the critical link between mercury emissions and environmental impact and human health. That is why a comprehensive national mercury monitoring network is needed to protect human health, safeguard fisheries, and track the impact of continued emissions reductions in the U.S. Tracking the progress we make here at home is particularly important as emissions from other parts of the world increase. We simply must have more comprehensive and accurate information, and we must have it soon; otherwise, we risk making misguided policy decisions.
In order to obtain these real-world measurements, I have joined with Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) to introduce the Comprehensive National Mercury Monitoring Act. This bipartisan legislation would create a comprehensive new program to measure mercury levels across the U.S. by building on existing environmental monitoring efforts.
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. I am convinced that the new measurements provided by our legislation would help the public make good choices about what fish are safe to eat and help policy makers, scientists, and citizens better understand the sources, consequences, and trends in U.S. mercury pollution.
This conviction is backed up by a report by the EPA's own Inspector General which stated that "without field data from an improved monitoring network, EPA's ability to advance mercury science will be limited and 'utility-attributable' hotspots that pose health risks may occur and go undetected."
Discussions of mercury pollution often focus on such numbers as tons of emissions and parts-per-billion of contamination. To me, the fact that compels us to take decisive action is this: nearly all of us have at least trace amounts of the more dangerous form of mercury, methylmercury, in our bodies. This serious threat to the children of today and to the generations to come must be addressed. The legislation I have introduced would provide the information needed to do so.
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Each new scientific study seems to find higher levels of mercury in more ecosystems and in more species than we had previously thought, even in the songbirds that live in New England's forests. As of 2008, every state in the country has issued fish consumption advisories due to mercury contamination. Here in Maine, every freshwater lake, river, and stream in our beautiful state is subject to a mercury advisory, warning pregnant women and young children to limit their consumption of fish caught in these waters. While this advisory is bad enough for the many anglers who love to fish Maine waters, it is especially difficult for indigenous peoples like those of the Penobscot Indian Nation for whom subsistence fishing is an important part of their culture. In addition, mercury levels in Maine fish, loons, and eagles are among the highest in North America.
Reducing this threat to our people and our wildlife is one of my priorities. In 2002, the Senate unanimously passed my legislation to ban the sale of mercury fever thermometers, the source of some 17 tons of mercury in solid waste every year.
Today, scientists must rely on limited information in order to better understand the critical link between mercury emissions and environmental impact and human health. That is why a comprehensive national mercury monitoring network is needed to protect human health, safeguard fisheries, and track the impact of continued emissions reductions in the U.S. Tracking the progress we make here at home is particularly important as emissions from other parts of the world increase. We simply must have more comprehensive and accurate information, and we must have it soon; otherwise, we risk making misguided policy decisions.
In order to obtain these real-world measurements, I have joined with Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) to introduce the Comprehensive National Mercury Monitoring Act. This bipartisan legislation would create a comprehensive new program to measure mercury levels across the U.S. by building on existing environmental monitoring efforts.
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. I am convinced that the new measurements provided by our legislation would help the public make good choices about what fish are safe to eat and help policy makers, scientists, and citizens better understand the sources, consequences, and trends in U.S. mercury pollution.
This conviction is backed up by a report by the EPA's own Inspector General which stated that "without field data from an improved monitoring network, EPA's ability to advance mercury science will be limited and 'utility-attributable' hotspots that pose health risks may occur and go undetected."
Discussions of mercury pollution often focus on such numbers as tons of emissions and parts-per-billion of contamination. To me, the fact that compels us to take decisive action is this: nearly all of us have at least trace amounts of the more dangerous form of mercury, methylmercury, in our bodies. This serious threat to the children of today and to the generations to come must be addressed. The legislation I have introduced would provide the information needed to do so.
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