Senator Collins Introduces Mercury Reduction Act of 2003

S. 616. A bill to amend the Solid Waste Disposal Act to reduce the quantity of mercury in the environment by limiting the use of mercury fever thermometers and improving the collection and proper management of mercury, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Mercury Reduction Act of 2003. I am pleased that my colleagues, Senators JEFFORDS, Chafee, Kerry, Hutchison, Reed, Lieberman, Voinovich, Dorgan, and LEAHY have joined me in this initiative. Our legislation addresses the very serious problems of mercury in the environment and mercury disposal. It takes special aim at one of the most common and widely distributed sources of mercury mercury fever thermometers while also for the first time creating a nationwide policy for dealing with surplus mercury.

Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that is widespread in the environment and particularly harmful to developing children. In fact, according to a draft report recently released by the EPA, approximately 5 million American women of childbearing age have mercury levels in their bloodstream above safe levels. Tragically, the children of these women will have an elevated risk of birth defects.

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 distributed to all tissues including the brain. This organic mercury can accumulate in the food chain and become concentrated in some species of fish, posing a health threat to some people who consume them. For this reason, 40 States have issued freshwater fish advisories that warn certain individuals to restrict or avoid consuming fish from affected bodies of water.

One prevalent source of mercury in the environment is from mercury fever thermometers. Many of us know from personal experience that they are easily broken. In fact, in 1998 the American Poison Control Center received 18,000 phone calls from consumers who had broken mercury thermometers.

One mercury thermometer contains a little under one gram of mercury. Despite its small size, the mercury in one thermometer, if it were released annually into the environment, is enough to contaminate all the fish in a 20-acre lake.

The bill we are introducing today calls for a nationwide ban on the sale of mercury fever thermometers. It would also provide grants for swap programs to help consumers exchange mercury thermometers for digital or other alternatives.

Our legislation would allow millions of consumers across the Nation to receive free digital thermometers in exchange for their mercury thermometers. By bringing mercury thermometers in for proper disposal, consumers will ensure the mercury from their thermometers does not end up polluting our lakes and threatening our health. It will also reduce the risk of breakage and contamination inside the home.

An important component of our bill is the safe disposal of the mercury collected from thermometer exchange programs, which are increasingly popular in communities throughout our country. I want to make sure that we are actually removing surplus mercury from the environment and from commerce, rather than simply recycling it. It obviously does little good to collect all this mercury from thermometer exchange programs if it is going to be recycled into new products and put back into commerce and eventually into our environment. This bill directs the EPA to ensure that the mercury is properly collected and stored in order to keep it out of the environment and out of commerce. Once the mercury is collected, my intention is it will never again be able to pose a threat to the health of our children.

The mercury collected from thermometer exchange programs is only part of the problem. There is a bigger problem, and that is the global circulation of mercury. Let me give an example. When the HoltraChem manufacturing plant in Orrington, ME, shut down a few years ago, the plant was left with over 100 tons of unwanted mercury and no known way to permanently and safely dispose of it. In total, about 3,000 tons of mercury is held at similar plants across the country.

Yet despite this surplus mercury, large amounts of mercury are still being mined around the world. In addition, the Department of Defense currently has a stockpile of over 4,000 tons of surplus mercury it does not know what to do with and for which it does not have any use.

In view of these facts, why are Algeria and other countries still mining huge amounts of an element that is a known neurotoxin, when the United States and other countries are doing their best to remove this extremely toxic element from the environment? How will the United States dispose of the huge amounts of mercury at chlor-alkali plants and other sources that no longer are understood?

Our bill would create an interchange task force to address these very questions. The task force would be chaired by the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and would be comprised of members from other Federal agencies involved with mercury. Our legislation directs this task force to find ways to reduce the mercury threat to humans and to our environment, to identify long-term means of disposing of mercury safely and properly, and to address the excess mercury problems from mines as well as industrial sources. This task force would also be directed to identify comprehensive solutions to the global mercury problem. One year from the creation of this task force, it would be required to submit its recommendations to the Congress for permanently disposing of mercury and for reducing the amount of new mercury mined every year.

In the meantime, this legislation would make significant progress toward reducing one of the most widespread sources of mercury contamination in the environment, a source that is found in many of our homes; that is, the mercury thermometer. Perhaps even more important, this legislation would, for the first time ever, establish a national policy, which is what we need to deal with surplus mercury in order to protect our environment in the long term, as well as our health, and particularly the health of developing children, from this highly toxic element.

I hope many more of my colleagues will join me in cosponsoring this legislation and that it will be signed into law this year.