For Immediate Release:
April 9, 2003 |
|
Mercury Reduction Bill Passed By Environment
Committee: U.S. PIRG Praises Positive Step for
Public Health
Washington, DC - The Senate Environment and Public Works
Committee today approved bipartisan legislation
introduced by Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) to reduce the
extensive mercury contamination of the environment.
Mercury is a toxic pollutant that can damage
neurological development in children and which has
contaminated fish in tens of thousands of lakes and
rivers. The bill would ban the sale of mercury fever
thermometers, provide for collection and exchange
programs to replace thermometers currently in use with
non-mercury thermometers, and create an EPA program to
manage surplus mercury.
"We applaud Senator Collins for taking the initiative to
address the significant problem of mercury used in
consumer products," said Jeremiah Baumann, an
environmental health advocate for the U.S. Public
Interest Research Group, a public interest advocacy
organization. "Toxic mercury should be on its way out of
use in products, and this bill starts by removing it
from a product where it's entirely unnecessary."
According to recently released data from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one in 12 women of
childbearing age carries levels of mercury in her
bloodstream higher than EPA considers safe. Because
mercury can cross the placenta, the National Academy of
Sciences has estimated that 60,000 children are born
each year at increased risk of neurological harm.
Mercury is released in massive quantities by coal-fired
power plants and waste incinerators, one route by which
mercury in products enters the environment.
Senators Jim Jeffords (I-VT), ranking minority member of
the committee, and Lincoln Chafee (R-RI), who chairs the
Superfund and waste management subcommittee, championed
the bill through the committee process.
"We look now to the full Senate and to the House of
Representatives for swift action to pass this important
bill into law," said Baumann.
U.S. PIRG is the national lobbying office for the
state Public Interest Research Groups. State PIRGs are
non-profit, non-partisan public interest advocacy
organizations.
