Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, today along with Senator Carper, I am introducing the Comprehensive National Mercury Monitoring Act. This bill would ensure that we have accurate information about the extent of mercury pollution in our Nation.

A comprehensive national mercury monitoring network is needed to protect human health, safeguard fisheries, and track the effect of emissions reductions in the U.S. This tracking is particularly important in light of increasing mercury emissions from other countries. By accurately quantifying regional and national changes in atmospheric deposition, ecosystem contamination, and bioaccumulation of mercury in fish and wildlife in response to changes in mercury emissions, a monitoring network would help policy makers, scientists, and the public to better understand the sources, consequences, and trends in United States mercury pollution.

Mercury is a potent neurotoxin of significant ecological and public health concern, especially for children and pregnant women. It is estimated that approximately 410,000 children born in the U.S. were exposed to levels of mercury in the womb that are high enough to impair neurological development. Mercury exposure has gone down as U.S. mercury emissions have declined; however, levels remain unacceptably high.

Each new scientific study seems to find higher levels of mercury in more ecosystems and in more species, and the issue of mercury emissions is growing in importance around the world. At present, scientists must rely on limited information to understand the critical linkages between mercury emissions and environmental response and human health. Successful design, implementation, and assessment of solutions to the mercury pollution problem require comprehensive long-term information. A system for collecting such information, such as we have for acid rain and other pollution, does not currently exist for mercury--a much more toxic pollutant. We must have more comprehensive information and we must have it soon; otherwise, we risk making misguided policy decisions.

Specifically, the Comprehensive National Mercury Monitoring Act would direct EPA, in conjunction with the Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, National Park Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, and other appropriate Federal agencies, to establish a national mercury monitoring program to measure and monitor mercury levels in the air and watersheds, water and soil chemistry, and in marine, freshwater, and terrestrial organisms at multiple sites across the Nation.

The act would establish a scientific advisory committee to advise on the establishment, site selection, measurement, recording protocols, and operations of the monitoring program.

The act would establish a centralized database for existing and newly collected environmental mercury data that can be freely accessed on the Internet and that is compatible with similar international efforts.

The act would require a report to Congress every 2 years on the program, including trend data, and an assessment of the reduction in mercury deposition rates that need to be achieved in order to prevent adverse human and ecological effects every 4 years; and

The act would authorize $95 million over 3 years to carry out the act.

We must establish a comprehensive, robust national mercury monitoring network to provide the data needed to help make decisions that can protect the people and environment of Maine and the entire Nation.

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