Senator responds to inaction and mismanagement by federal EPA in failing to prevent long-term health threats caused by mercury

Full text of bill (pdf)

April 20, 2004
Columbus, OH - State Senators Bob Hagan (D-Youngstown) and Eric Fingerhut (D-Cleveland) today announced the introduction of legislation which requires the owner or operator of an Ohio-based coal fired power plant to curb mercury emissions by 90% by December 2005. The proposal is modeled after similar legislation passed in Connecticut last year.

Hagan's proposal seeks to counter industry efforts at the federal level to postpone mercury reductions into the distant future. The current federal proposal being touted by the electric industry and the U.S. EPA seeks instead to establish a "cap-and-trade" plan in which some polluting plants could continue to churn out enormously unsafe levels of mercury if they buy credits from other plants that had installed pollution controls. Environmental groups and many members of Congress have charged the proposal does little to protect the public health, is insufficient and not scientifically defensible. Under the Bush Administration's Clear Skies Initiative, the amount of mercury released in to the atmosphere would be three times greater than under the Clean Air Act.

"Under the Clinton Administration's enforcement policies of the Clean Air Act, which were recently abandoned by the current U.S. EPA brass, we would have seen power plant mercury emission reductions of 90% in four years. Instead were stuck with an industry friendly 'cap-and-trade' and 70% reductions by 2018," said Senator Hagan. "To put off reducing emissions of this deadly toxin until 2018 is grossly negligent and absolutely inexcusable for a regulatory agency."

"Clean water and clean air are critical to the health of our citizens and the economic future of our state," said Senator Fingerhut. The rollbacks of the Clean Air Act and mercury emission rules proposed by the Bush Administration are dangerous for Ohio and the nation. We must take this step on the state level to ensure a clean environment for Ohioans to live and work."

As a member of the National Conference of Environmental Legislators, Senator Hagan and Senator Fingerhut are joining legislators from Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin each pledging to pursue cuts in mercury emissions in a cooperative effort to find a solution to a toxic regional problem.

Mercury is a highly toxic chemical that is emitted as a vapor when coal is burned and has been found to cause brain disorders in developing fetuses and young children. Coal fired power plants account for about 40 percent of the mercury emissions nationwide. Mercury is the most pervasive pollutant in the Great Lakes and all the state public health departments in the region have issued fish consumption advisories. Mercury, especially from coal-fired power plants, settles into lakes, rivers, and oceans and contaminates fish that humans then eat.

The Los Angeles Times reported that a new U.S. EPA analysis shows that 630,000 of the roughly 4 million babies born in the US each year have dangerously high levels of mercury in their blood. Mercury in children can impair motor functions, learning capacity, vision and memory, and can cause a variety of other symptoms related to neurological damage.

"Environmental advocates and the policies we promote are too often maligned for using what big-industry like to call 'junk-science'," Senator Hagan said. "Whatever the term used to describe it, at least its science! The Bush Administration policies on mercury and toxic emissions have no scientific plausibility and nearly all have been written by the industry itself."

[TOP]