EPA Regulatory Relief Act of 2011

Floor Speech

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Chairman, we have an ongoing debate in this Congress about regulation. My friends on the Republican side believe we have too much. Those of us on the Democratic side think we need careful regulation. We shouldn't have too much, but we shouldn't abolish it all together.

An appropriate regulation levels the playing field for our businesses and industries, but it also gives a fair shot to the health, safety, and concerns of our people who have no control over the production processes and how those may affect their health.

The issue presented in my amendment is not about a regulation, but it's related to the effort to roll back regulations at any cost and at any price and whatever the consequences. My amendment would include in the bill a finding that the American people who are exposed to mercury from industrial sources, addressed by the rules listed in section 2(d), through the consumption of fish containing mercury face a health hazard. There really is no dispute about that, scientifically or medically.

So the question may be, why do we need the finding? The reason we need the finding is because we have to acknowledge when industrial processes actually create health risk in order that we can accept our responsibility to address the risk that's created in the production process.

And the cement in boilers does produce mercury. Now, it's so self-evident that it produces mercury that this map here shows every single State in our Union has issued a mercury advisory. The reason those States, locally, not from Washington, have issued those mercury advisories is to give a heads-up to their citizens to be careful about eating fish that may be contaminated; and that is the responsibility of government, to let people know when there is a health risk and to help them avert it and to stop it.

My amendment, Mr. Chairman, simply incorporates what the scientific and medical community know, and that is that mercury is a toxin. And if we ingest it, particularly if it's a child, an infant, that it does enormous health damage long term.

So why don't we acknowledge what we know, namely, that mercury is a toxin, that we include this in the findings so that, in so doing, we accept the responsibility that this country has, that all of us have, to do everything we can to avoid unnecessary health care risk.

This amendment simply does that. It's not additional regulation, but it's a finding of what we know and 50 States have found, that mercury is a threat to the public health of its own citizens.

I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman.

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