(NOTE: This deadline has passed, but the info is still telling.)
URGENT: Write to the EPA and ask them to protect fetuses, infants, children, and women of childbearing age from Mercury Poisoning!
According to the NRDC (Natural Resources Defence Council), "Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that, like lead, especially threatens the brains and nervous systems of fetuses and young children. A number of neurological diseases and problems are linked to mercury exposure, including learning and attention disabilities -- which are a growing problem -- and mental retardation. Mercury also might be linked to the recent increase in autism, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease." [1]
President Bush Sr. required the EPA to study hazardous pollution from power plants in 1990 via the Clean Air Act. In 2000, the "EPA finally concluded that it is necessary to regulate hazardous power plant air pollutants, including mercury. Under the law, the agency is required to set emissions limits for these hazardous power plant air pollutants, and those limits must take into account the maximum amount of reduction that is technologically achievable." [1]
However, the power plant and utility industries don't want to be bothered with protecting our children, and they have lobbied with millions of dollars to have regulations decreased. Subsequently, the "EPA has proposed to downgrade mercury emissions -- only from the utility industry -- from a hazardous pollutant to a run-of-the-mill pollutant. EPA has proposed a 30 percent reduction goal [instead of the previous 90%] under weaker, ineffective provisions of the Clean Air Act, which would be accompanied by a mercury-emissions trading program stretched out over 15 years, rather than the three years required by law." [1]
The "Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee, which includes representatives from state and federal agencies, environmental groups, universities and industry, delivered [a] letter to EPA Administrator Michael Leavitt, urging him to reconsider the proposal." [2] In this letter they stated, "Mercury Poses a Serious Health Threat to Children, and Therefore, the EPA Should Elevate Consideration of Mercury’s Health Impacts on Children in Finalizing This Rule. ... The neurological effects of mercury on fetuses, infants and children are of particular concern to this Committee and they need to be more thoroughly addressed in this rulemaking." [3]
In light of public outcry, the EPA has extended it's deadline for public comments from the end of March to the end of April. Leavitt has called for more analysis on the issue of mercury regulation. We must keep up the public pressure on the EPA to do the right thing for our children and require the maximum amount of reduction that is technologically achievable.
Please write to Michael Leavitt at the EPA and ask him to stick to the original mercury reduction requirements of 90% in 3 years.
http://www.epa.gov/adminweb/comments.htm
[1] http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/031205.asp
[2] http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/040130.asp
[3] http://yosemite.epa.gov/ochp/ochpweb.nsf/content/20040126.htm/$file/20040126.pdf